S-E- FORMAL 





Go|)>TightN". 



COFk'RlGHT DEPOSIT. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




Guglielmo Marconi 
Benjamin Franklin 



Thomas Edison 

Sir Henry Bessemer 

Robert Fulton 



Alexander (irahani llcll 
Hudson Maxim 



A GROUP OF INVENTORS 



STORIES OF 
USEFUL INVENTIONS 



BY 



S. E. FORMAN 

AUTHOR OK " A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 
" ADVANCED CIVICS," ETC. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO, 

1914 



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Copyright, 1911, 1914, hy 
The Century Co. 



PuhUslied Septemher, 1911 



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JAN -6 1915 



CI.A:i91256 



PREFACE 

IX this little book I have gi\'en the history of those 
inventions which are most useful to ma:n in his 
daily life. I have told the story of the Match, the 
Stove, the Lamp, the Forge, the Steam-Engine, the 
Plow, the Reaper, the Mill, the Loom, the Needle, 
the Gun, the House, the Carriage, the Boat, the 
Clock, the Book, and the Message. From the his- 
tory of these inventions w^e learn how man became the 
master of the world of nature around him, how he 
brought fire and air and earth and water under his 
control and compelled them to do his will and his 
work. When we trace the growth of these inven- 
tions we at the same time trace the course of human 
progress. These stories, therefore, are stories of 
human progress; they are chapters in the history of 
civilization. 

And they are chapters which have not hitherto 
been brought together in one book. Monographs on 
most of the subjects included in this book have ap- 
peared, and excellent books about modern inventions 
have been written, but as far as 1 know, this Is the 

V 



PREFACE 

first time the evolution of these useful inventions 
has been fully traced in a single volume. 

While preparing the stories I have received many 
courtesies from oflScers in the Library of Congress 
and from those of the National Museum. 

S. E. F. 
May, 191 1. 

Washington, D. C. 



VI 



CONTENTS 

r.\GK 

The Foreword ix 

I The AIatch 3 

II The wStove 13 

III The Lamp 28 

IV The Forge . . . . „ 38 

V The Steam-Enoixe ..,...,. 54 

\'I The Plow . . . '/2i 

--YII The Reaper 85 

Mil TifE AIiLL o .... 97 

IX The Loom 109 

X The Xeedle 125 

— XI The Gun .... o ... o . . 137 

XII The House . » 147 

XIII The Carriage 168 

XIV The Carriage (Cojitijiiicd) 180 

XV The Boat 190 

X\T The Clock 211 

X\TI The Book 227 

X\TII The ^Iessage 246 



vu 



A FOREWORD^ 

THESE stories of useful inventions are chapters 
in the history of civihzation and this little book 
is a book of history. Now we are told by Herodotus, 
one of the oldest and greatest of historians, that when 
the writer of history records an event he should state 
the time and the place of its happening. In some 
kinds of history — in the history of the world's wars, 
for example, or in the history of its politics — this 
is strictly true. When we are reading of the battle 
of Bunker Hill we should be told precisely when 
and where the battle was fought, and in an account 
of the Declaration of Independence the time and 
place of the declaration should be given. But in the 
history of inventions wx cannot always be precise as 
to dates and places. Of course it cannot be told 
when the first plow or the first loom or the first clock 
was made. Inventions like these had their origin 
far back in the earliest ages when there was no sucli 

^ Where readers are quite young llie ^""oreworcl liad l)etler l)e 
postponed until the stories themselves are read. 

ix 



A FOREWORD 

person as a historian. And when we come to the 
history of inventions in more recent times the his- 
torian is still sometimes unable to discover the pre- 
cise time and place of an invention. 

It is in the nature of things that the origin of 
an invention should be surrounded by uncertainty and 
doubt. An invention, as we shall see presently, is 
nearly always a response to a certain want. The 
world wants something and it promises a rich reward 
to one who will furnish the desired thing. The in- 
ventor, recognizing the want, sets to work to make 
the thing, but he conducts his experiments in secret, 
for the reason that he does not want another to steal 
his ideas and get ahead of him. We can see that this 
is true in respect to the flying machine. The first ex- 
periments with the flying machine were conducted in 
secret in out of the way places and pains were taken 
that the public should know as little as possible about 
the new machine and about the results of the experi- 
ments. The history of the flying machine will of 
course have to be written, but because of the secrecy 
and mystery which surrounded the beginnings of the 
invention it will be extremely difficult for the future 
historian to tell precisely when the first flying ma- 
chine was invented or to name the inventor. If it is 
so difficult to get the facts as to the origin of an ia- 

X 



A FOREWORD 

vention In our own time, how much more difficult it is 
to clear away the mystery and doubt which surround 
the beginnings of an invention in an age long past! 

In a history of inventions, then, the historian can- 
not be precise in respect to dates and places. F or- 
tunately this is not a cause for deep regret. It is 
not a great loss to truth that we cannot know pre- 
cisely when the first book was printed, nor does it 
make much difference whether that book was printed 
in Holland or in Germany. In giving an account of 
an invention we may be content to treat the matter 
of time and place broadly, for the story is apt to 
carry us through a stretch of years that defies com- 
putation, a stretch that is immensely longer than the 
life of any nation. For our purpose these millen- 
niums, these long stretches of time, may be thought 
of as being divided Into three great periods, namely: 
the primitrce^ the ancient, and the modern period. 
Even a division so broad as this is not satisfactory, 
for In the progress of their Inventions all countries 
have not kept equal step with the march of time. In 
some things ancient Greece was modern, while in most 
things modern Alaska Is primitive and modern China 
Is ancient. Nevertheless it will be convenient at 
times in this book to speak of the primitive, the an- 
cient and the modern periods, and It will be useful to 

XI 



A FOREWORD 

regard the primitive period as beginning Avidi the 
coming of man on earth and extending to the year 
5000 B. C; the ancient period may be thought of as 
beginning with the year 5000 B. C. and ending with 
the year 476 A. D., leaving for the modern period 
the years that have passed since 476 A. D. 

In tracing the growth of an invention the peri- 
ods indicated above can serve as a time-guide only 
for those parts of the world where the course of civ- 
ilization has taken its way, for invention and civiliza- 
tion have traveled the same road. The region of 
the w^orld's most advanced civilization Includes the 
lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, Central 
and Northern Europe, the British Isles, North Amer- 
ica, South America and Australia. It is within this 
region that we shall follow the development of what- 
ever Invention is under consideration. When speak- 
ing of the first forms of an invention, however, it 
Avill sometimes be necessary, when an Illustration is 
desired, to draw upon the experience of people who 
are outside of the wall of civilization. The reason 
for going outside is plain. The first and simplest 
forms of the useful inventions have utterly perished in 
civilized countries, but they still exist among savage 
and barbarous peoples a^ld it is among such peoples 
that the first forms must be studied. Thus In the 

xli 



A FOREWORD 

story of the clock, wc iinist go to a far-off peninsula 
of Southern Asia (p. 190) for an Illustration of the 
beginning of our modern time-piece. Such a depar- 
ture from the beaten track of civilization does not 
spoil the story, for as a rule, the rude forms of in\'cn- 
tions found among the lowest races of to-day are 
precisely the same forms that were in use among the 
Egyptians and Greeks when they were in their lowest 
state. 

When studying the history of an invention there 
are two facts or principles which should ever be borne 
in mind. The first principle is this : Necessity is 
the mother of invention. This principle was touched 
upon when it was said that an invention appears as a 
response to a want. When the world wants an in- 
vention it usually gets it and makes the most of it, 
but it will have nothing to do with an invention it 
does not w^ant. The steam-engine was invented two 
thousand years ago (p. 55) but the world then had 
no work for steam to do, so the invention attracted 
little attention and came to naught. About two hun- 
dred years ago, however, man did want the services 
of steam and Inventors were not long in supplying the 
engine that was needed. About a hundred years ago 
the broad prairie lands of the United States began to 
be tilled but it was soon found that the xast areas 

xill 



A FOREWORD 

could not be plowed and that the immense crops could 
not be harvested by the old methods. So improve- 
ments upon the plow and the reaper began to be made 
and in time the steam gang-plow and the complete 
harvester were invented. When the locomotive first 
came into use a simple handbrake was used to stop the 
slow-going trains, but as the size and the speed of 
trains increased the handbrake became more and more 
unsatisfactory. Sometimes a train would run as much 
as a half mile beyond a station before it could be 
stopped and then when " backed '' it would again 
pass beyond the station. The problem of stopping 
the train promptly became fully as important as start- 
ing it. The problem was solved by the invention of 
the air-brake. And thus it has been with all the in- 
ventions which surround us: necessity has been the 
mother of them all. 

The other principle is that a mechanical inven- 
tion is a growth^ or, to state the truth in another 
way, an invention nearly always is simply an im- 
provement upon a previous invention. The loom, 
for example, was not invented by a particular person 
at a particular time; it did not spring into existence 
in a day with all its parts perfected; it grew, century 
by century, piece by piece. In the stories which will 
follow the steps in the growth of an invention are 

xiv 



A FOREWORD 

shown in the Illustrations. These pictures are not 
for amusement but for study. As you read, examine 
them carefully and they will teach you quite as much 
about the growth of the invention as you can be taught 
by words. 



XV 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



STORIES OF USEFUL 
INVENTIONS 



THE MATCH 

DID you ever think how great and how many 
are the blessuigs of fire? Try to think of a 
w^orld without fire. Suppose we should wake up 
some bitter cold morning and find that all the fires 
in the world were out, and that there was no way 
of rekindling them; that the art of kindling a fire 
had been lost. In such a plight we should all soon 
be shivering with the cold, for our stoves and fur- 
naces could give us no warmth; we should all soon 
be hungry, for we could not cook our food; we 
should all soon be idle, for engines could not draw 
trains, wheels of factories could not turn, and trade 
and commerce would come to a standstill; at night 
we would grope in darkness, for we could use neither 
lamp nor gas nor electric light. It is easy to see 
that without fire, whether for light or heat, the life 
of man would be most wretched. 

There never was a time when the world was with- 
out fire, but there was a time when men did not 

3 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

know how to kindle fire; and after they learned how 
to kindle one, It was a long, long time before they 
learned how to kindle one easily. In these days we 
can kindle a fire w^ithout any trouble, because we can 
easily get a match; but we must remember that the 
match is one of the most wonderful things in the 
world, and that it took men thousands of years to 
learn how to make one. Let us learn the history of 
this familiar little object, the match. 

Fire was first given to man by nature itself. 
When a forest is set on fire by cinders from a neigh- 
boring volcano, or when a tree is set ablaze by a 
thunderbolt, we may say that nature strikes a match. 
In the early history of the world, nature had to 
kindle all the fires, for man by his own effort was 
unable to produce a spark. The first method, then, 
of getting fire for use was to light sticks of wood at 
a flame kindled by nature — by a volcano, perhaps, 
or by a stroke of lightning. These firebrands (Fig. 
I ) were carried to the home and used in kindling 
the fires there. The fire secured in this way was 
carefully guarded and was kept burning as long as 
possible. But the flame, however faithfully watched, 
would sometimes be extinguished. A sudden gust 
of wind or a sudden shower w^ould put it out. Then 
a new firebrand would have to be secured, and this 
often meant a long journey and a deal of trouble. 

In the course of time a man somewhere in the 
world hit upon a plan of kindling a fire without hav- 
ing any fire to begin with; that is to say, he hit upon 

4 



THE MAICH 




FIG. I. — GETTING A MATCH FROM NATURE. 

a plan of producing a fire by artificial means. He 
knew that by rubbing his hands together very hard 
and very fast he could make them very warm. By 
trial he learned that by rubbing two pieces of dry 
wood together he could make theju very warm. 
Then he asked himself the question: Can a fire be 
kindled by rubbing two pieces 
of wood together, if they are 
rubbed hard enough? He 
placed upon the ground a piece 
of perfectly dry wood (Fig. 2) 
and rubbed this with the end of 
a stick until a groove was 
made. In the groove a fine 
dust of wood — a kind of saw- 
dust — was made by the rub- fig. 2.— primitive fire- 

1- TT ^ 11* MAKING. THE STICK- 

bmg. He went on rubbing and-groove method. 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



hard and fast, and, behold, the dust in the groove 
began to glow ! He placed some dry grass upon 
the embers and blew upon them with his breath, 
and the grass burst into a flame. ^ Here for the 
first time a man kindled a fire for himself. He 
had invented the match, the greatest invention, per- 
haps, in the history of the world. 

The stick-and-groove method — as we may call it 
— of getting a flame was much better than guard- 
ing fire and carrying it from place to place; yet it 
was, nevertheless, a very clumsy method. The wood 
used had to be perfectly dry, and the rubbing re- 
quired a vast amount of work and patience. Some- 
^ ■ ^ -^^ times it would take hours to 

produce the spark. After a 
while — and doubtless it was a 
very long while — it was found 
that it was better to keep the 
end of the stick in one spot and 
twirl it (Fig. 3) than it was to 
plow to and fro with it. The 
twirling motion made a hole in 
which the heat produced by the 
friction was confined in a small 
space. At first the drilling was done by twirling the 
stick between the palms of the hands, but this made 

1 Mr. Walter Hough of the National Aliiseiim, himself a wizard 
in the art of fire-making, tells me tliat a blaze cannot be pro- 
duced simply by rubbing sticks together. All that can be done 
by rubbing is to make them glow. 




FIG. 3. — THE FIRE DRILL. 

(Simple Form.) 



THE MATCII 






FIG. 4. — FIRE DRILL. 

(Improved Form.) 



the hands too hot for comfort, and the fire-makers 
learned to do the twirHng with a cord or thong ^ 
wrapped around the stick (Fig. 4). You see, the 
upper end of the stick which 
serves as a drill turns in a cav- 
ity in a mouthpiece which the 
operator holds between his 
teeth. If you should under- 
take to use a- fire-drill of this 
kind, it is likely that your jaws 
would be painfully jarred. 

By both the methods de- 
scribed above, the fire was ob- 
tained by rubbing or friction. The friction method 
seems to have been used by all primitive peoples, 
and it is still in use among savages in various parts 

of the world. 

The second step in fire-making 
was taken when it was discovered 
that a spark can be made by strik- 
ing together a stone and a piece of 
iron ore. Strike a piece of flint 
against a piece of iron ore known 
as pyrites, or fire-stone, and you will 
make sparks fly. (Fig 5.) Let 
these sparks fall into small pieces 
of dried moss or powdered char- 
coal, and the ihider^ as the moss or the charcoal is 
called, will catch fire. It will glow, but it will not 

^ A narrow strip of leather. 



^^•- 



?^ 



i'X^ 



^UM. 



^'-"■y 



m 



\jr^ 



FIG. 5. — STRIKING 
FIRE. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

blaze. Now hold a dry splinter in the glowing tin- 
der, and fan or blow with the breath and the splinter 
will burst into a flame. If you will tip your splinter 
with sulphur before you place it in the burning tin- 
der, you will get a flame at once. This was the 
strike-a-light, or percussion, method of making a fire. 
It followed the friction method, and was a great im- 
provement upon it because it took less work and a 
shorter time to get a blaze. The regular outfit for 







1 




( 


i *. 




' / 


i 
1 







1 ,# fe 

FIG. 6. — TINDER BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND SULPHUR- 
TIPPED SPLINTERS. 



fire-making with the strike-a-light consisted of a tin- 
der-box, a piece of steel, a piece of flint, and some 
splinters tipped with sulphur (Fig. 6). The flint 
and steel were struck together, and the sparks thus 
made fell into the tinder and made it glow. A splin- 
ter was applied as quickly as possible to the tinder, 
and when a flame was produced the candle which 
rested in the socket on the tinder-box was lighted. 
As soon as the splinter was lighted the cover was re- 

8 



THE MATCH 

placed on the tinder-box, so as to smother the glow- 
ing tinder and save it for another time. 

The strike-a-light method was discovered many 
thousands of years ago, and it has been used by 
nearly all the civiHzed nations of the world. ^ And 
it has not been so very long since this method was 
laid aside. There are many people now living who 
remember when the flint and steel and tinder-box 
were in use in almost every household. 

About three hundred years ago a third method 
of producing fire was discovered. If you should drop 
a small quantity of sulphuric acid into a mixture of 
chlorate of potash and sugar, you would produce a 
bright flame. Here w^as a hint for a new way of 
making a fire; and a thoughtful man in Vienna, in 
the seventeenth century, profited by the hint. He 
took one of the sulphur-tipped splinters which he 
was accustomed to use with his tinder-box, and 
dipped it into sulphuric acid, and then applied it to 
a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The 
splinter caught fire and burned with a blaze. Here 
w^as neither friction nor percussion. The chemical 
substances were simply brought together, and they 
caught fire of themselves; that is to say, they caught 
fire by chemical action. 

The discovery made by the Vienna man led to a 

1 The ancient Greeks used a burning-glass or -lens for kindling 
fire. The lens focused the sun's rays upon a substance that 
would burn easily and set it afire. The burning-glass was not 
connected in any way with the development of the match. 



stokil:s of useful inventions 

new kind of match — the chemical match. A prac- 
tical outfit for fire-making now consisted of a bottle 
of sulphuric acid (vitriol) and a bundle of splints 
tipped with sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sugar. 
Matches of this kind were very expensive, costing as 
mxuch as five dollars a hundred; besides, they were 
very unsatisfactory. Often w^hen the match was 
dipped into the acid it would not catch fire, but would 
smolder and sputter and throw the acid about and 
spoil both the clothes and the temper. These dip- 
splint matches were used in the eighteenth century by 
those who liked them and could afford to buy them. 
They did not, however, drive out the old strike-a-light 
and tinder-box. 

In the nineteenth century — the century in which 
so many wonderful things were done — the fourth 
step in the development of the match was taken. In 
1827, John Walker, a druggist in a small English 
town, tipped a splint with sulphur, chlorate of potash, 
and sulphid of antimony, and rubbed it on sand- 
paper, and it burst into flame. The druggist had 
discovered the first friction-chemical match, the kind 
we use to-day. It is called friction-chemical because 
it is made by mixing certain chemicals together and 
rubbing them. Although Walker's match did not 
require the bottle of acid, nevertheless it was not a 
good one. It could be lighted only by hard rub- 
bing, and it sputtered and threw fire in all direc- 
tions. In a few years, however, phosphorus was 
substituted on the tip for antimony, and the change 

10 



THE MATCH 






worked wonders. The match could now he lighted 
WMth very Httle ruhhing, anci it was no longer neces- 
sary to have sandpaper upon which to ruh it. It 
would ignite when ruhhed on any dry surface, and 
there was no longer any sputtering. This was the 
phosphorus match, the match wnth which we are so 
familiar. 

After the invention of the easily-lighted phos- 
phorus match there was no longer use for the dip- 
splint or the strike-a-light. 
The old methods of getting a 
blaze were gradually laid 
aside and forgotten. The 
first phosphorus matches were 
sold at twenty-five cents a 
block — a block (Fig. 7) 
containing a hundred and 
forty-four matches. They 
were used by few. Now a 
hundred matches can be 
bought for a cent. It is said 
that in the United States we use about 150,000,000,- 
000 matches a year. This, on an average, is about 
five matches a day for each person. 

There is one thing against the phosphorus match: 
it ignites too easily. If one is left on the floor, 
it may be ignited by stepping upon it, or by 
something falling upon it. We may step on a phos- 
phorus match unawares, light it, leave it burn- 
ing, and thus set the house on fire. Mice often 

II 




BLOCK 



MATCHES. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




FIG. 8.- 



A BOX OF MODERN SAFETY 
MATCHES. 



have caused fires by gnawing the phosphorus matches 

and igniting them. In one city thirty destructive 

fires were caused in one year by mice lighting matches. 

To avoid accident by matches, the safety match 

(Fig. 8) has re- 
cently been invented. 
The safety match 
does not contain 
phosphorus. The 
phosphorus is mixed 
with fine sand and 
glued to the side of the box in which the matches are 
sold. The safety match, therefore, cannot be lighted 
unless it is rubbed on the phosphorus on the outside 
of the box. It is so much better than the old kind of 
phosphorus match that it is driving the latter out of 
the market. Indeed, in some places it is forbidden 
by law to sell any kind of match but the safety match. 
The invention of the safety match is the last step 
in the long history of fire-making. The first match 
was lighted by rubbing, and the match of our own 
time is lighted by rubbing; yet what a difference there 
is between the two ! With the plowing-stick or fire- 
drill it took strength and time and skill to get a 
blaze; with the safety match an awkward little child 
can kindle a fire in a second. 

And how long it has taken to make the match as 
good as it is! The steam-engine, the telegraph, 
the telephone, and the electric light were all in use 
before the simple little safety match. 

12 



THE STOVE 

FROM the story of the match you have learned 
how man through long ages of experience 
gradually mastered the art of making a fire easily 
and quickly. In this chapter, and in several which 
are to follow, we shall have the history of those in- 
ventions w^hich have enabled man to make the best 
use of fire. Since the first and greatest use of fire 
is to cook food and keep the body w^arm, our account 
of the inventions connected with the use of fire may 
best begin w^ith the story of the stove. 

The most important uses of fire were taught by 
fire itself. As the primitive man stood near the 
flames of the burning tree and felt their pleasant 
glow, he learned that fire may add to bodily com- 
fort; and when the flames swept through a forest 
and overtook a deer and baked it, he learned that 
fire might be used to improve the quality of his food. 
The hint was not lost. He took a burning torch 
to his cave or hut and kindled a fire on his floor 
of earth. His dwelling filled with smoke, but he 
could endure the discomfort for the sake of the 
fire's warmth, and for the sake of the toothsomeness 
of the cooked meats. .After a time a hole was made 
in the roof of the hut, and through this hole the 

13 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

smoke passed out. Here was the first stove. The 
primitive stove was the entire house; the floor was 
the fireplace and the hole in the roof was the 
chimney (Fig. i). The word ^' stove '' originally 




FIG. I. — THE PRIMITIVE STOVE. 



meant '' a heated room.'' So that if we should say 
that at first people lived in their stoves, we should 
say that which is literally true. 

Early inventions in cooking consisted in simple 

14 



THE STOVE 



devices for applying flame directly to the thing which 
was to be cooked. The first roasting was doubtless 
done by fastening the flesh to a pole placed in a 
horizontal position above the fire and supported as 







FIG. 2. — PRIMITIVE COOKING. 

IS shown in Figure ^} The horizontal bar called a 
spit was originally of wood, but after man had learned 
to work in metals an iron bar was used. When 
one side of the flesh was roasted the spit was turned 
and the other side was exposed to the flames. The 
spit of the primitive age was the parent of the mod- 
ern grill and broiler. 

Food was first boiled in a hole in the ground. A 
hole w^as filled with water into which heated stones 
were thrown. The stones, by giving oft their heat, 
caused the water to boil In a very short time. After 

1 Several of the illustrations in this chapter are reproduced 
through the courtesy of the Boston Stove Qx). 

15 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

the art of making vessels of clay was learned, food 
was boiled in earthen pots suspended above the fire. 

The methods of warming the house and cooking 
the food which have just been described w-ere cer- 
tainly crude and inconvenient, but it was thousands 
of years before better methods were invented. The 
long periods of savagery and barbarism passed and 
the period of civilization was ushered in, but civ- 
ilization did not at once bring better stoves. Neither 
the ancient Egyptians nor the ancient Greeks knew 
how to heat a house comfortably and conveniently. 
All of them used the primitive stove — a fire on 
the floor and a hole in the roof. In the house of 
an ancient Greek there was usually one room which 
could be heated w^hen there was need, and this was 
called the ^'black-room" {atriinn) — black from 
the soot and smoke which escaped from the fire on 
the floor. 

But we must not speak harshly of the ancients 
because they were slow in improving their methods 
of heating, for in truth the modern world has not 
done as well in this direction as might have been ex- 
pected. In a book of travels written only sixty 
years ago may be found the following passage: *' In 
Normandy, w^here the cold is severe and fire expen- 
sive, the lace-makers, to keep themselves warm and 
to save fuel, agree with some farmer who has cows 
in winter quarters to be allowed to carry on their 
work in the society of the cattle. The cows would 
be tethered in a long row on one side of the apart- 

i6 



THE STOVE 

ment, and the lace-makers sit on the ground on the 
other side with their feet buried in the straw.'' 
Thus the lace-makers kept themselves warm by the 
heat which came from the bodies of the cattle; the 
cows, in other words, served as stoves. This barba- 
rous method of heating, was practised in some parts of 
France less than sixty years ago. 




FIG. 3. — A ROMAN BRAZIER. 

The ancient peoples around the Mediterranean 
may be excused for not making great progress in the 
art of heating, for their climate was so mild that 
they seldom had use for fire in the house. Never- 
theless there was in use among these people an in- 
vention which has in the course of centuries de- 
veloped into the stove of to-day. This was the 
brazier, or warming-pan (Fig. 3). The brazier 

17 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

was filled with burning charcoal and was carried 
from room to room as it w^as needed. The un- 
pleasant gases which escaped from the charcoal were 
made less offensive, but not less unhealthy, by burn- 
ing perfumes with the fuel. The brazier has never 
been entirely laid aside. It is still used in Spain and 
in other warm countries where the necessity for fire 
is rarely felt. 

The brazier satisfied the wants of Greece, but the 
colder climate of Rome required something better; 
and in their efforts to invent something better, the 
ancient Romans made real progress in the art of 
warming their houses. They built a fire-room — 
called a hypocaiist — in the cellar, and, by means 
of pipes made of baked clay, they connected the 
hypocaust with different parts of the house (Fig. 
4). Heat and smoke passed up together through 
these pipes. The poor ancients, it seems, w^ere for- 
ever persecuted by smoke. However, after the 
wood in the hypocaust was once well charred, the 
smoke was not so troublesome. The celebrated 
baths (club-rooms) of ancient Rome were heated 
by means of hypocausts with excellent results. In- 
deed, the hypocaust had many of the features and 
many of the merits of our modern furnace. Its 
weak feature was that it had no separate pipe to 
carry away the smoke. But as there were no chim- 
neys yet in the world, it is no wonder there was no 
such pipe. 

The Romans made quite as much progress in the 

18 



THE STOVE 

art of cooking as they did in the art of heating. 
Perhaps the world has never seen more skilful cooks 
than those who served in the mansions of the rich 







FIG. 4. — A ROMAN HYPOCAUST. 

during the period of the Roman Empire (27 B.c- 
476 A.D.). In this period the great men at Rome 
abandoned their plain way of living and became 
gourmands. One of them wished for the neck of 

19 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

a crane, that he might enjoy for a longer time his 
food as it descended. This demand for tempting 
viands developed a race of cooks who were artists in 
their way. Upon one occasion a king called for a 
certain kind of fish. The fish could not be had, but 
the cook was equal to the emergency. '' He cut a 
large turnip to the perfect imitation of the fish de- 
sired, and this he fried and seasoned so skilfully 
that his majesty's taste was exquisitely deceived, and 
he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish.'' 
Such excellent cooking could not be done on a primi- 
tive stove, and along with the improvements in the 
art of cooking, there w^as a corresponding improve- 
ment at Rome in the art of stove-making. 

When Rome fell (476 A.D.), many of the best 
features of her civilization perished w^ith her. 
Among the things that were lost to the w^orld w^ere 
the Roman methods of cooking and heating. When 
the barbarians came in at the front door, the cooks 
fled from the kitchen. The hardy northerners had 
no taste for dainty cooking. Hypocausts ceased to 
be used, and were no longer built. For several 
hundred years, in all the countries of Europe, the 
fireplace was located, as of old, on the floor in the 
center of the room, while the smoke was allowed to 
pass out through a hole in the roof. 

The eleventh century brought a great Improve- 
ment In the art of heating, and the improvement 
came from England. About the time of the Con- 
quest (1066) a great deal of fighting was done on 

20 



THE STOVE 



the roofs of English fortresses, and the smoke com- 
ing up through the hole in the center of the roof 
proved to be troublesome to the soldiers. So the fire 
was moved from the center of the floor to a spot 
near an outside wall, and an opening was made 
in the wall just above the fire, so that the smoke 
could pass out. Here was the origin of the cliim- 
ney. Projecting from the wall above the fire was 
a hood, which served to direct the smoke to the 
opening. At first the opening for the smoke ex- 
tended but a few feet from the fire, but it was soon 
found that the further up 
the wall the opening ex- 
tended the better was the 
draft. So the chiminey was 
made to run diagonally up 
the wall as far as possi- 



r^^M^. 




FIG. 5. — A CIIIMXEV AND FIREPLACE IX AX OLD LXGLI-ii CAilLE. 

21 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

ble. The next and last step in the development of 
the chimney was to make a recess in the wall as 
a fireplace, and to build a separate structure of 
masonry — the chimney — for the smoke. By the 
middle of the fourteenth century chimneys were 
usually built in this way (Fig. 5). As the fireplace 
and chimney cleared the house of soot and smoke, 
they grew in favor rapidly. By the end of the fif- 
teenth century they were found in the homes of 
nearly all civilized people. 

The open fireplace was always cheerful, and it 
was comfortable when you were close to it; but it 
did not heat all parts of the room equally. That 
part next to the fireplace might be too warm for com- 
fort, while in another part of the room it might be 
freezing. About the end of the fifteenth century 
efforts were made to distribute heat throughout the 
room more evenly. These efforts led to the in- 
vention of the modern stove. We have learned 
that the origin of the stove is to be sought in the 
ancient brazier. In the middle ages the brazier in 
France took on a new form. Here was a fire-box 
(Fig. 6) with openings at the bottom for drafts of 
air and arrangements at the top for cooking things. 
This French warming-pan {rechaud) was the con- 
necting-link between the ancient brazier and the mod- 
ern stove. All it lacked of being a stove was a 
pipe to carry off the smoke, and this was added by 
a Frenchman named Savot, about two hundred years 
ago. We owe the invention of the chimney to Eng- 

22 



THE Sl'OVE 

land, but for the stove we are indebted to France. 
The Frenchman built an iron fire-box, with open- 
ings for drafts, and connected the box with the chim- 
ney by means of an Iron flue or pipe. Here was 
a stove which could be placed in the middle of the 




FIG. 6. — A STOVE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

room, or in any part of the room where it was de- 
sirable, and which would send out its heat evenly in 
all directions. 

The first stoves were, of course, clumsy and un- 
satisfactory; but inventors kept working at them, 
making themx better both for cooking and for heat- 

23 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

ing. By the middle of the nineteenth century 
the stove was practically what it is to-day (Fig. 
7). Stoves proved to be so much better than fire- 
places, that the latter were gradually replaced in 
large part by the former. Our affection, however, 





FIG. 7. — THE MODEEN STOVE. 

for a blazing fire is strong, and it is not likely that 
the old-fashioned fireplace (Fig. 8) will ever en- 
tirely disappear. 

The French stove just described is intended to 
heat only one room. If a house with a dozen rooms 
is to be heated, a dozen stoves are necessary. About 
one hundred years ago there began to appear an 
invention by which a house of many rooms could be 

24 



THE STOVE 

heated by means of one stove. This invention was 
the furnace. Place in the cellar a large stove, and 
run pipes from the stove to the different rooms of the 




PK^j g _ AN OLD-FASHIONED FIREPLACE AND OVEN. 

house, and you have a furnace (Fig. 9). Doubt- 
less we got our idea of the furnace from the Roman 
hypocaust, although the Roman invention had no 
special pipe for the smoke. The first furnaces sent 
out only hot air, but in recent years steam or hot 
water is sent out through the pipes to radiators, 

25 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



which are simply secondary stoves set up in con- 
venient places and at a distance from the source of 

-1 




FIG. 9. — A MODERN FURNACE. 



the heat, the furnace in the celhir. Furnaces were 
invented for the purpose of heating large buildings, 
but they are now used in ordinary dwellings. 

26 



THE STOVE 

In Its last and most highly developed form, the 
stove appears not only without dust and smoke, hut 
also without even a lire in the cellar. The modern 
electric stove, of course, is meant. Pass a slight 
current of electricity through a piece of platinum 
wire, and the platinum becomes hot. You have 
made a diminutive electric stove. Increase the 
strength of your current and pass it through some- 
thing which offers greater resistance than the plati- 
num, and you get more heat. The electric stove 
is a new invention, and at present it is too expensive 
for general use, although the number of houses in 
which it is used is rapidly increasing, and in time 
it may drive out all other kinds of stoves. It will 
certainly drive all of them out if the cost of elec- 
tricity shall be sufficiently reduced; for it is the clean- 
est, the healthiest, the most convenient, and the most 
easily controlled of stoves. 



27 



THE LAMP 

NEXT to its usefulness for heating and cook- 
ing, the greatest use of fire is to furnish light 
to drive away darkness. Man is not content, like 
birds and brutes, to go to sleep at the setting of the 
sun. He takes a part of the night-time and uses it 
for work or for travel or for social pleasures, or for 
the improvement of his mind, and in this way adds 
several years to life. He could not do this if he 
were compelled to grope in darkness. When the 
great source of daylight disappears he must make 
light for himself, for the sources of night-light — 
the moon and stars and aurora borealis and light- 
ning — are not sufficient to satisfy his wants. In this 
chapter we shall follow man in his efforts to con- 
quer darkness, and we shall have the story of the 
lamp. 

We may begin the story with an odd but interest- 
ing kind of lamp. The firefly or lightning-bug 
which we see so often in the summer nights w^as in 
the earliest time brought into service and made to 
shed its light for man. Fireflies wxre imprisoned 
in a rude box — in the shell of a cocoanut, perhaps, 
or in a gourd — and the light of their bodies was 
allowed to shoot out through the numerous holes 

28 



THE LAMP 




FIG. 1. — A 1-lKEFLV LAMP. 



made in the box. We must not despise the li^rht 

given out by these tiny creatures. '' In the moun- 

tains of Tijuca," says a 

traveler, '' I have read the 

finest print by the hght of 

one of these natural lamps 

(fireflies) placed under a 

common glass tumbler 

(Fig. i), and with distinct- 
ness I could tell the hour of 

the night and discern the 

very small figures which 

marked the seconds of a little Swiss watch." 

Although fireflies have been used here and there 

by primitive folk, they could 
hardly have been the first 
lamp. Man's battle with 
darkness really began with 
the torch, which w\as lighted 
at the fire in the cave or in the 
wigwam and kept burning for 
purposes of illumination. A 
burning stick was the first 
lamp (Fig. 2). The first 
improvement in the torch 
was made when slivers or 
splinters of resinous or oily 
wood were tied together and 
burned. We may regard 
this as a lamp which is all 



I 



##/. 



//A. 



Willi 



m 
1 1' I 




FIG. 2. — A lilKXlNG STICK 
WAS THE FIRST LAMP. 



29 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

wick. This Invention resulted In a fuller and 
clearer light, and one that would burn longer than 
the single stick. A further improvement came when 
a long piece of wax or fatty substance was wrapped 
about with leaves. This was something like a 
candle, only the wick (the leaves) was outside, and 
the oily substance which fed the wick was in the 

center. 

In the course of time it was discovered that it was 
better to smear the grease on the outside of the 
stick, or on the outside of whatever was to be burned; 
that is, that it w^as better to have the wick inside. 
Torches were then made of rope coated with resin 
or fat, or of sticks or splinters smeared with grease; 
here the stick resembled the wick of the candle as 
we know it to-day, and the coating of fat cor- 
responded to the tallow or paraffin. Rude candles 
made of oiled rope or of sticks smeared with fat were 
invented in primitive times, and they continued to 
be used for thousands of years after men were civ- 
ilized. In the dark ages — and they were dark in 
more senses than one — torch-makers began to wrap 
the central stick first with flax or hemp and then 
place around this a thick layer of fat. This torch 
gave a very good light, but about the time of Alfred 
the Great (900 A.D.) another step was taken: the 
central stick was left out altogether, and the thick 
layer of fat or w^ax was placed directly around the 
wick of twisted cotton. All that w^as left of the 
original torch — the stick of wood — was gone. 

30 



J HE LAMP 

The torch had developed into the caudle (Fig. 3) 

The candles of to-day are made of better materia 

than those of the olden time, and they 

are much cheaper; yet in principle 

they do not differ from the candles of a 

thousand years ago. 

I have given the development of the 

candle first because its forerunner, the 

torch, was first used for lighting. But 

it must not be forgotten that along 

with the torch there was used, almost 

from the beginning, another kind of 

lamp. Almost as soon as men dis- 
covered that the melted fat of animals 

would burn easily — and that was cer- 
tainly very long ago — they invented 

in a rude form the lamp from which 

the lamp of to-day has been evolved. 

The cavity of a shell (Fig. 4) or of a stone, or of the 

skull of an animal, was filled with melted fat or oil, 

and a wick of flax or other 
fibrous material was laid 
upon the edge of the ves- 
sel. The oil or grease 
passed up the wick by 




FIG. 3. — THE 
CANDLE. 



g^lifii. 




FIG. 4. — A SHELL FILLED WITH 
OIL AND USED AS A LAMP. 



capillary action 



and 



when the end of the wick was lighted it continued to 
burn as long as there were both oil and wick. This 

^ Hold the end of a dry towel in a basin of water and watch 
the water rise in the towel. It rises by capillary action. 

31 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

was the earliest lamp. As man became more civil- 
ized, instead of a hollow stone or a skull, an earthen 
saucer or bowl was used. Around the edge of the 
bowl a gutter or spout was made for holding the 
wick. In the lamp of the ancient Greeks and 




FIG. 



AN ETRUSCAN LAMP 2^00 YEARS OLD. 



Romans the reservoir which held the oil was closed, 
although in the center there w^as a hole through 
which the oil might be poured. Sometimes one of 
these lamps would have several spouts or nozzles. 
The more wicks a lamp had, of course, the more 

32 



THE LAMP 

light It would give. There is in the museum at Cor- 
tona, in Italy, an ancient lamp which has sixteen 
nozzles. This interesting relic (Fig. 5) was used 
in a pagan temple in Etruria more than twenty-five 
hundred years ago. 

Lamps such as have just been described were used 
among the civihzed peoples of the ancient world, 
and continued to be used through the Middle Ages 
far into modern times. 
They were sometimes very 
costly and beautiful (Fig. 
6), but they never gave a 
good light. They sent out 
an unpleasant odor, and 
they were so smoky that 
they covered the walls and 
furniture with soot. The 
candle was in every way 
better than the ancient 
lamp, and after the inven- 
tion of wax tapers — can- 
dles made of wax — in the ^'^' ^--^^ ancient lamp. 
thirteenth century, lamps were no longer used 
by those who could afford to buy tapers. For 
ordinary purposes and ordinary people, however, the 
lamp continued to do service, but it was not im- 
proved. The eighteenth century had nearly passed, 
and the lamp was still the unsatisfactory, disagree- 
able thing it had always been. 

Late in the eighteenth century the improvement 
^ 33 







^ 






STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

came. In 1783 a man named Argand, a Swiss 
physician residing in Eondon, invented a lamp that 
was far better than any that had ever been made be- 
fore. What did Argand do for the lamp? Ex- 
amine an ordinary lamp in which coal-oil is burned. 
^ The chimney protects the 

flame from sudden gusts 
of wind and also creates a 
draft of air/ just as the fire- 
chimney creates a draft. 
Argand's lamp (Fig. 7) was 
the first to have a chimney. 
Look below the chimney and 
you will see open passages 
through which air may pass 
upward and find its way to 
the v/ick. Notice further 
that as this draft of air 
passes upward it is so di- 
rected that, w^hen the lamp 
is burning, an extra quantity 
of air plays directly upon the 
wick. Before Argand, the wick received no 
supply of air. Now notice — and this is very im- 
portant — that the wick of our modern lamp is 
flat or circular, but ////;/. The air in abundance 

1 Light a short piece of candle and place it in a tumbler, and 
cover the top of the tumbler. The experiment teaches that a 
flame must have a constant supply of fresh air and will go out 
if the air is shut off. 




FIG. 7. — AX ARGAXJ LAMP. 



34 



THE LAMP 

plays upon both sides oi the thm wick, and burns it 
without making smoke. Smoke is simply half- 
burned particles (soot) of a burning substance. 
The particles pass off half-burned because enough 
air has not been supplied. Now Argand, by mak- 
ing the wick thin and by causing plenty of air to 
rush into the flame, caused all the wick to be burned 
and thereby caused it to burn with a white flame. 

After the invention of Argand, the art of lamp- 
making improved by leaps and by bounds. More 
progress was made in twenty years after 1783 than 
had been made in twenty centuries before. New 
burners were invented, new and better oils were 
used, anci better wicks made. But all the new kinds 
of lamps were patterned after the Argand. The 
lamp you use at home may not be a real Argand, but 
it is doubtless made according to the principles of the 
lamp invented by the Swiss physician in 1783. 

Soon after Argand invented his lamp, William 
Murdock, a Scottish inventor, showed the world a 
new way of lighting a house. It had long been 
known that fat or coal, when heated, gives off a 
vapor or gas w^hich burns with a bright light. In- 
deed, it is always a gas that burns, and not a hard 
substance. In the candle or in the lamp the flame 
heats the oil which comes up to it through the wick 
and thus causes the oil to give off a gas. It is this 
gas that burns and gives the light. Now Murdock, 
in 1797, put this principle to a good use. He heated 
coal in a large vessel, and allowed the gas which 

35 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



was driven oft to pass through mains and tubes to 
difi^erent parts of his house. Wherever he wanted 



\ 



\U///x 



^ 



f!(. 




I 



FIK. 8. — THE GAS JET. 



a light he let the gas es- 
cape at the end of the 
tube (Fig. 8) in a small 
jet and lighted it. Here 
was a lamp without a wick. 
Murdock soon extended 
his gas-pipes to his fac- 
tories, and lighted them 
with gas. As soon as it 
was learned how to make gas cheaply, and conduct it 
safely from house to house, whole cities were rescued 
from darkness by the new ilkiminant. A considerable 
part of London was lighted by gas in 1815. Balti- 
more was the first city in the United 
States to be lighted by gas. This was 
in 1821. 

. The gas-light proved to be so much 
better than even the best of lamps, 
that in towns and cities almost every- 
body who could afford to do so laid 
aside the old wick-lamp and burned 5 
gas. About 1876, however, a new —I 
kind of light began to appear. This . 
was the electric light. The powerful ^^^"/^/^ T\\^ 
arc liji(Jit (Fig. 9), made by the pas- fk.. 9.— ax early 

^ r r 1 • • 1 ARC EAMP. 

sage of a current or electricity be- 
tween two carbon points, was the first to be in- 
vented. This gave as much light as a hundred 

36 




THE LAMP 

gas-jets or sc\'cral hiindrccl lamps. Such a ll^ht 
was excellent for lighting streets, but its painful 
glare and its sputtering rendereci it unfit for use 
within doors. It was not long, however, before an 
electric light was invented w^hich could be used any- 
where. This was the famous Edison's incandescent 
or glow lamp (Fig. lo) , which we see on every hand. 
Edison's invention is only a few years old, yet there 
are already hundreds of millions of incandescent 
lamps in use In the United States alone. 




FIG. 10. 



AX TXCANDESCEXT ELECTRIC LICIIT. 



The torch, the candle, the lamp, the gas-light, the 
electric light, — these are the steps of the develop- 
ment of the lamp. And how marvelous a growth 
it is! How great the triumph over darkness! In 
the beginning a piece of wood burns w^ith a dull 
flame, and fills the dingy wigwam or cave with soot 
and smoke; now, at the pressure of a button, the 
house is filled w^ith a light that rivals the light of 
day, with not a particle of smoke or soot or harm- 
ful gas. Are there to be further triumphs in the 
art of lighting? Are we to have a light that shall 
drive out the electric light? Only time can tell. 

37 



THE FORGE 

AFTER men had learned how to use lire for 
cookhig and heating and Hghting they slowly 
learned how to use it when working with metals. 
In the earliest times metals were not used. For 
long ages stone was the only material that man 
could fashion and shape to his use. During this 
period, sometimes called the " stone age," weapons 
were made of stone; dishes and cooking utensils were 
made of stone; and even the poor, rude tools of the 
age were made of stone (Fig. i). 

In the course of time man learned how^ to make 
his implements and weapons of metals as well as of 
stone. It is generally thought that bronze was the 
first metal to be used and that the '' stone age " was 
followed directly by the '' bronze age," a period 
when all utensils, weapons, and tools were made 
of bronze (Fig. 2) . It is easy to believe that bronze 
was used before iron, for bronze is made of a mix- 
ture of tin and copper and these two metals are 
often found in their pure or natural state. When- 
ever primitive man, therefore, found pieces of pure 
copper and tin, he could take the two metals and by 
melting them could easily mix them and make bronze 
of them. This bronze he could fashion to his use. 

38 



THE FORGE 











Tfjm:imz 



FIG. I. — IMPLEMENTS OF THE STONE AGE. 

39 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



.'I. 



i 






CI 




H 




1 




X 




FIG. 2. — -IMPLEMENTS OF THE BRONZE AGE. 

40 



THE FORGE 

There is no doubt that he did this at a very early 
age. In nearly all parts of the world there are 
proofs that in primitive times, many articles were 
made of bronze. 

If primitive man were slow to learn the use of iron 
it was not because this metal was scarce, for iron 
is everywhere. *' Wherever, as we go up and down, 
we see a red-colored surface, or a reddish tint upon 
the solid substances of the earth, we see iron — the 
bank of red clay, the red brick, the red paint upon 
the house wall, the complexion of rosy youth, or my 
lady's ribbon. Even the rosy apple derives its tint 
from iron which it contains." ^ But although iron 
is so abundant it is seldom found in its pure or 
natural state. It is nearly always mixed with other 
substances, the mixture being known as iron ore. 
Primitive man could find copper and tin in their pure 
state but the only pure iron he could find was the 
little which fell from heaven in the form of meteors, 
and even this was not perfectly pure for meteoric 
iron is also mixed slightly with other metals. 

The iron which lay about primitive man in such 
abundance was. buried and locked tightly in an ore. 
To separate the iron from the other substances 
of the ore w^as by no means an easy thing to do. 
Iron can best be extracted from the ore by putting 
the ore in a fire and melting out the iron. Place 
some iron ore in a fire and if the fire is hot enough 
— and it must be very hot indeed — the iron will 
ij. R. Smith, ''The Story of Iron and Steel," p. 3. 

41 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

leave the ore and will gather into a lump at the 
bottom of the fire. To separate the iron from its 
ore in this way is to make iron. When and where 
man first learned the secret of making iron is of 




FIG. 3. — THE PRIMITIVE FORGE. 

course unknown. A camp-fire in some part of the 
world may have shown to man the first lump of iron, 
or a forest fire sweeping along and melting ores in 
its path may have given the first hint for the manu- 
facture of iron. 

Iron making at first doubtless consisted in simply 
melting the ore in an open heap of burning w^ood or 
charcoal, for charcoal is an excellent fuel for smelt- 

42 



THE FORGE 



ing (meltino;) ores. But this open-fire method was 
wasteful and tedious and at a \'ery early date the 
smelting ot the ore ^^•as done in a rude sort of a fur- 
nace. A hole ten or twelve feet deep was dug in 
the side of a hill. In the hole were placed char- 
coal and iron ore, first a layer of charcoal, then a 
layer of the ore. At the top of the mass there was 
an opening and at the bottom there were several 
openings. When the mass was set on fire the open- 
ings produced a good strong draft, the charcoal was 
consumed, and the ore w^as smelted. The product 
was a lump of wrought iron^ known as the blooin. 

The hillside furnace worked well enough when 
the wind was favorable, but when the winci was un- 
favorable there was no draft and no iron could 
be made. So ironmakers found a way by which 
the air could be driven into the furnace by artificial 
means. They invented the bellows^ a blowing ap- 
paratus (Fig. 3) which was usually made of goat 
skins sewed together and which w^as operated either 
by the hands or by the feet (Fig. 4) . Sometimes the 
bellows consisted of a hollow log in w^hich a piston 
was worked up and down (Fig. 5). After the in- 
vention of the bel- 
^^ ^ low, s, ironmakers 

could make their 
iron whenever and 
wherever they 
pleased, for they 

FIG. 4. — BELLOWS WORKED BY THE FEET. COUlCl lOFCe A\\ UUO 

43 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

their furnaces at any time and at any place. This 
rude bellows forcing a draft of air into a half- 
closed furnace filled with a burning mass of charcoal 
and iron ore w^as the first form of the forge, one of 
the greatest of all inventions. 

With the invention of the forge the stone age 
gradually passed away and the iron age was ushered 




FIG. 5. — THE WOODEN BELLOWS. 



in. Tools and weapons could now be made of iron. 
And great was the difference between iron tools and 
stone tools. To cut down a tree with a flint hatchet 
required the labor of a man for a month, while to 
clear a forest with such an implement was an im- 
possible task. But the forge gave to man iron for 
the sharp cutting tools, for the ax and knife and 
chisel and saw. With these he became the master of 
wood and he could now easily cut down trees and 

44 



THE FORGE 

build houses and make furniture anel waj^ons and 
boats. 

As time went on and man advanced in civilization, 
iron was found to be the most useful of metals. 
Iron can be shaped into many forms. It can be 
drawn into wire of any desired length or fineness, it 
may be bent in any direction, it may be sharpened, 
or hardened, or softened, at pleasure. '' Iron ac- 
commodates itself to all our wants and desires and 
even to our caprices. It is equally serviceable to the 
arts, the sciences, to agriculture and war; the same 
ore furnishes the sword, the plowshare, the scythe, 
the pruning-hook, the needle, the spring of a watch 
or of a carriage, the chisel, the chain, the anchor, 
the compass and the bomb. It is a medicine of much 
virtue and the only metal friendly to the human 
frame." ' 

A metal that was so useful was needed in large 
quantities, yet the primitive forge could turn out 
only small quantities of iron. A day's labor at the 
bellows would produce a lump w^eighing only fifteen 
or twenty pounds. As a result of this slowness in 
manufacture there was always in primitive and 
ancient times a scarcity of iron. Indeed in some 
countries iron was a precious metal, almost as 
precious as silver or gold. In many countries, it is 
true, therd wxre thousands of forges at work, but 
in no country was the supply of iron equal to the de- 
mand. 1 he old forge could not supply the demand, 
1 From ''Five Black Arts," p. 311. 

45 



SrORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



yet centuries passed before any great improvement 
was made in the progress of iron making. 

Near the close of the Middle Ages improvements 

upon the prim- 
itive forge be- 
gan to be made. 
In the sixteenth 
century i r o n - 
makers in Ger- 
many began to 
smelt ore in 
closed furnaces 
and to build 
their furnaces 
higher and to 
make them 
larger (Fig. 6). 
Sometimes they 
built their fur- 
naces to a height 
of twenty or 
thirty feet. 
About this time 
also a better 
and a stronger 
blast was invent- 
ed. Water- 
power instead of hand-power began to be used for 
operating the bellows. In some cases w^ooden bel- 
lows — great wooden pistons working in tubs — 

46 




FIG. 6. 



A BLAST FURNACE OF THE MIDDLE 
AGES. 



THE FORGE 

were substituted for the old bellows of leather. By 
the end of the sixteenth eentury so many improve- 
ments had been made ui)()n the primitive forge that 
it no longer resembled the forge of anci'ent times. 
So the new forge received a new name and was called 
a blast furnace^ You should observe, however, 
that the blast furnace was simply the old forge built 
with a large closed furnace and provided with a 
more powerful blast. 

The invention of the blast furnace marked the 
beginning of a new era in the history of iron mak- 
ing. In the first place there was produced in the 
blast furnace a kind of iron that was entirely dif- 
ferent from that which was produced in the primi- 
tive forge. In the primitive forge there was made 
a lump of practically pure unmelted iron, known as 
wrought iron. In the blast furnace there was pro- 
duced a somew^hat impure grade of melted iron, 
known as cast iron, or pig- iron. In the second 
place, the blast furnace produced iron in quantities 
vastly greater than it was ever produced by the old 

iThe old forge continued to be used by the side of the blast 
furnace for centuries, and of course where it was used it was 
still called a forge. Thus we are told that in Maryland in 1761, 
there were eight furnaces and ten forges. It is said that as 
late as twenty-five years ago in certain parts of the Appalachian 
regions the American mountaineer still worked the little primiiiv.' 
forge to make his iron. 

2 It was given the name of pig iron because when the molten 
metal ran into the impressions made for it upon the sanded 
floor and cooled, it assumed a shape resembling a family of 
little pigs» 

47 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

forge. In the blast furnace more Iron could be made 
in a day than could be made by the forge in a month. 
In some of the early blast furnaces a thousand 
pounds of iron could be made at one melting and we 
read of one early furnace that produced 150 tons of 
iron in a year. 

But even with the blast furnace it was still diffi- 
cult to make enough iron to supply the ever-increas- 




FIG. 7. — MAKING CHARCOAL. 



ing demands of the industrial world. In the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries machinery was 
brought into use more than ever before and of course 
more iron was needed for the construction of the 
machines. There was ore enough for all the iron 
that was needed but it was difficult to get fuel enough 
to smelt the ore. Charcoal was still used as the 
fuel for smelting (Fig. 7), and in order to get wood 

48 



THE FORGE 

for the charcoal great Inroads were made upon the 
forests. In England in the early part of the eight- 
eenth century Parliament had to put a check upon 
the manufacture of iron in certain counties in order 
to save the forests of those counties from utter 
destruction. It then became plain that if iron mak- 
ing were to be continued on a large scale a new kind 
of fuel would have to be used in the furnaces. So 
men set their wits to work to find a new kind of fuel. 
As far back as 1619 Dud Dudley in the county of 
Warwick, England, undertook to use ordinary soft 
coal in his furnaces but his experiment was not very 
successful or very profitable. More than a century 
after this an English ironmaker named Abraham 
Darby began (in 1735) to use charred coal in his 
blast furnaces, and his experiments were successful. 
Here was the new fuel which was so badly needed. 
Charred coal is simply coke and coke could be had 
m abundance. So the new fuel was soon used in 
all parts of England and by the end of the eighteenth 
century coke was driving charcoal out of blast fur- 
naces (Fig. 8). 

About the time the use of coke for smelting be- 
came general, an Englishman named Neilson brought 
about another great change in the process of iron 
making. Before Neilson's time the blast driven into 
the furnace had always been one of cold air. Neil- 
son learned that if the air before entering the furnace 
w^ere heated to a temperature of 600 degrees it would 
melt twice the amount of ore and thus produce twice 

49 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

the amount of iron without any increase in the amount 
of fuel. So he invented (in 1828) a hot blast for 
the blast furnace (Fig. 9). With the use of coke 
and with the hot blast the production of iron increased 
enormously. But there was need for all the iron that 
could be made. Indeed it seems that the world can 
never get too much iron. About the time the hot 
blast was invented iron chains instead of ropes be- 




FIG. 8. AN OLD-TIME PITTSBURGH COKE OVEN. 



gan to be used for holding anchors, iron plows 
began to be made in great numbers (p. 83), iron 
pipes instead of hollow wooden logs began to be used 
as water-mains in cities, and iron rails began to be 
used on railroads. To supply iron for all these 
purposes kept ironmakers busy enough, even though 
they burned coke in their furnaces and made use of 
the hot air blast. 

But ironmakers were soon to become busier than 

50 



thil 1 urge 

ever before. * About the middle of the nineteenth 
century Sir Henry Bessemer invented a new process 
of making steel. Steel is only iron mixed with a 
small amount of carbon. Ironmakers have known 







FIG. 9. A KLAST FUKXACE. 



how to make steel — and good steel, too — for thou- 
sands of years, but before the days of Bessemer the 
process had always been slow and tedious, and the 
cost of steel had always been very great. Bessemer 

51 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




From copyright stereograph by Underwood & Underwood, X. V. 
FIG. 10. GREAT I-BEAM PASSINC) THROUGH A STRUCTURAL MILL. 



52 



THE FORGE 

undertook to make steel in large quantities and at 
low prices. In his experiments amid showers of 
molten metal he often risked his life, but his perse- 
verance and courage were rewarded. By 1858 he 
had invented a process by which tons of molten iron 
could be run into a furnace and in a few minutes be 
converted into a fine quality of steel. This invention 
of Bessemer w^as the last great step in the history of 
the forge. 

Now that steel could be made in great quantities 
and at a low cost it was put to uses never dreamed 
of in former times. Soon the railroad rail was made 
of steel, bridges were made of steel, and ships 
of war were plated with steel. Then ocean gray- 
hounds and battleships were made of steel, still later 
steel freight cars and steel passenger coaches were in- 
troduced, while in our own time we see vast quanti- 
ties of steel used in the building of houses. So while 
the invention of Bessemer marked the last step in the 
history of the forge it also marked the ending of the 
Age of Iron and the beginning of the wonderful age 
in which we live — the Age of Steel. 



53 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 

WE have now traced the steps by which man 
mastered the art of kindling a fire quickly 
and easily and have followed the progress that has 
been made in the most common uses of fire. But 
the story of a most important use of fire remains 
to be told, the story of its use in doing man's work. 
How important this use is, how much of the world's 
work is done through the agency of fire, a little 
reflection will make plain. Fire makes steam and 
w^hat does steam do? Its services are so many you 
could hardly name all of them. The great and many 
services of steam are made possible by the fire-engine, 
or steam-engine, and the story of this wonderful 
invention will now be told. 

That steam has the power to move things must 
have been learned almost as soon as fire was used 
to boil water. Heat water until it boils and the 
steam that is formed is bound to move something 
unless it is allowed to escape freely. It will burst 
the vessel if an outlet is not provided. That is why 
a spout has been placed on the tea-kettle. Where 
there is cooking, steam is abundant and the first ex- 
periments in steam were doubtless made in the kitchen 

54 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 



(Fig. i). It has been said that the idea of the 
steam-engine first occurred to Adam as he watched 
his wife's kettle boil. 

Whatever may have happened in ancient kitchens, 
we are certain that there were no steam-engines 
until many centuries after Adam. The beginnings 
of this invention are not shrouded in so much mystery 
as are those of the match and the lamp and the 
forge. In giving an 
account of the steam- 
engine we can men- 
tion names and give 
dates from the very 
beginning of the 
story. We know 
what the first steam- 
engine was like and 
we know who made 
it and w^hen and 
where it was made. 
It was made 120 B. 
C. by Hero, a philosopher of Alexandria in Egypt. 
It was like the one shown in Figure 2. Ihe boy 
applies the fire to the steam-tight vessel p and when 
steam is formed it passes up through the tube o and 
enters the globe which turns easily on the pivots. 
The steam, when it has filled the globe, rushes out of 
the short tubes w and :3 projecting from opposite 
sides of the globe and bent at the end in opposite 
directions. As it rushes out of the tubes the steam 

55 




FIG. I. — FIRST EXPERIMENTS WITH 
STEAM. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

strikes against the air and the reaction causes the 
globe to revolve, just as in yards we sometimes see 




FIG. 2. — HERO S ENGINE, 120 B. C. 



jets of water causing bent tubes to revolve. This 

was Hero's engine, the first steam-engine ever made. 

Hero's engine was used only as a toy and it seems 

56 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 

to represent all the ancients knew about the power of 
steam and all they did with it. It is not strange that 
they did not know more for there is no general rule 
by which discoveries are made. Sometimes even 
enlightened peoples have for centuries remained blind 
to the simplest principles of nature. The Greeks and 
Romans with all their culture and wisdom were igno- 
rant of some of the plainest facts of science. It 
is a little strange, however, that after Hero's dis- 
covery was made known, men did not profit by it. 
It would seem that eager and persistent attempts 
would have been made at once to have steam do use- 
ful work, as well as furnish amusement. But such 
was not the case. Hero's countrymen paid but little 
attention to his invention and the steam-engine passed 
almost completely out of men's minds and did not 
again attract attention for nearly seventeen hundred 
years. 

About the end of the fifteenth century Europe 
began to awaken from a long slumber and by the end 
of the sixteenth century its eyes were wide open. 
Everywhere men were now trying to learn all they 
could. The study of steam was taken up in earnest 
about the middle of the sixteenth century and by the 
middle of the next century quite a little had been 
learned of its nature and power. In 1629 an Italian, 
Branca by name, described in a book a steam-engine 
which would furnish power for pounding drugs in 
a mortar. There was no more need for such a 
machine then than there is now and of course the 

57 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

inventor aroused no Interest in his engine,. You 
can easily understand how Branca's engine (Fig. 
3) works. The steam causes the w^heels and the 
cylinder to revolve. As the cylinder revolves, a 
cleat on It catches a cleat on the pestle and lifts the 
pestle a short distance and then lets It fall. Here 
the pestle Instead of being raised by a human hand 
is raised by the force of steam. This engine would 




.^^ 





1 ,^ 


A 


' C 



FIG. 3. — BRANCA's engine, 1629. 

be more interesting if an engine had actually been 
made, but there is no reason to believe that Branca 
ever made the engine he described. We owe much 
to him, nevertheless, for suggesting how steam might 
be put to doing useful work. 

It was not very long before an Englishman put 
into practice what ^the Italian had only suggested. 
Edward Somerset, the Second Marquis of Wor- 
cester, In 1663 built a steam-engine that raised tg 

58 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 



the height of forty feet four large buckets of water 
In four minutes of time. This was the first useful 
work ever done by steam. Figure 4 shows the con- 
struction of Worcester's engine. 

In this engine there was one improvement oveir 
former engines which ' 
was of the greatest "^P 

importance : there 
was one vessel in 
which the steam was 
generated and an- 
other in which the 
steam did its w^ork. 
The steam-engine 
now consisted of two 
great divisions, the 
boiler and the engine 
proper. 

Worcester spent a 
large part of his 
fortune in trying to : 
improve the steam- 
engine, yet he re- 
ceived neither profit 
nor honor as a re- ^''' 4— Worcester's engine, 1663. 

ward. He died poor and his name was soon forgot- 
ten. His service to the world was nevertheless very 
great. In his time the mines of England had been 
sunk very deep into the earth; and the deeper they 
were sunk the greater was the difficulty of lifting the 

59 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

water out of them and keeping them dry. The 
water was lifted up from the mines by means of 
buckets drawn by horses or oxen (Fig. 5). Some- 
times it took several hundred horses to keep the water 
out of a single mine. It was Worcester's object to 
construct an engine that would do the work of the 
horses. The engine he built could not do this, yet it 
furnished the idea — and the idea is often the most 




FIG. 5. — AN ANCIENT METHOD OF DRAWING WATER. 



important thing. It was not long before engines 
built upon Worcester's plan were doing useful work 
at the mines. At the opening of the eighteenth 
century the steam-engine had been put to work and 
was serving man in England and throughout the con- 
tinent of Europe. 

The first engines were not safe. Often the steam 
pressed too heavily upon the sides of the vessel in 
which it was compressed and there were explosions. 

60 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 



About 1680 Denis Papin, a Frenchman, invented the 
safety valve, that is a valve that opens of its own 
accord and lets out steam when there is more in the 
vessel than ought to be there. About ten years later 
Papin gave the world another most valuable idea. 
In Worcester's engine the steam in the steam chest 
pressed directly on the water that was to be forced 
up. Papin showed a better way. He inxentcd the 
engine shown in Figure 6. In 
this engine a small quantity of 
water was placed in the bottom 
of the cylinder A. Fitting 
closely in the cylinder was a pis- 
ton B such as Papin had seen 
used in ordinary pumps. We 
will suppose that the piston is 
near the bottom of the cylinder 
and that a fire is built under- 
neath. The bottom being 
made of very thin metal the 
water is rapidly converted into steam and thus drives 
the piston up to the top as shown in the figure. 
Here a latch E catches the piston-rod H and holds 
the piston up until it is time for it to descend. Now 
the fire is removed and the steam, becoming cold, is 
condensed and a vacuum is formed below the piston. 
The latch E now releases the rod H and the piston 
is driven down by the air above it, pulling with it 
the rope L which passes over the pulleys TT. As 
the rope descends it lifts a weight IF or does other 

61 




FIG. 6. — I'APIX'S EN 
GINE, 1690. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

useful work. As the inventor of the piston Papin 
ranks among the greatest of those whose names are 
connected with the development of the steam-engine. 
Our story has now brought us to the early part 
of the eighteenth century. Everywhere men were 
now trying to make the most of the ideas of Wor- 
cester and Papin. The mines were growing very 
deep. As the water in them was getting beyond 
control something extraordinary had to be done. 
Now it seems that whenever the world is in need of an 
extraordinary service someone is found to render 
that service. The man who built the engine that 
was needed was a humble blacksmith of Dart- 
mouth, England, Thomas Newcomen. This master 
mechanic in 1705 constructed the best steam-engine 
the world had yet seen. We must study Newcomen's 
engine (Fig. 7) very carefully. The large beam 
a moved freely up and down on the pivot v. One 
end of the beam was connected with the heavy pump- 
rod k by means of a rope or chain working in a 
groove and the other end was connected with the 
rod r in the same way. When steam from the boiler 
b passed through the valve d into the cylinder (steam- 
chest) a it raised the piston s and with it the piston-^ 
rod r thus slackening the rope and allowing the op- 
posite end of the beam to be pulled down by the 
weight of the pump-rod k. As soon as the piston 
s reached the top of the cylinder the steam was shut 
off by means of the valve d and the valve / was turned 
and a jet of cold water from the tank ^^ was injected 

62 




FIG. 7. — NEWCOMEN S ENGINE, 1705. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

into the cylinder a with the steam. The jet of cold 
water condensed the steam rapidly — steam Is 
always condensed rapidly when anything cold comes 
in contact with it — and the water formed by the 
condensation escaped through the pipe p into the tank 
o. As soon as the steam in a is condensed, a vacuum 
was formed in the cylinder and the atmosphere above 
forced the piston down and at the same time pulled 
the pump-rod k up and lifted water from the well or 
mine. When the piston reached the bottom of 
the cylinder the valve d was opened and the piston 
again ascended. Thus the beam is made to go up 
and down and the pumping goes on. Notice that 
steam pushes the piston one way and the atmosphere 
pushes it back. 

In Newcomen's engine the valves (/ and d) at first 
w^ere opened and shut (at each stroke of the piston) 
by an attendant, usually a boy. In 17 13 a boy 
named Humphrey Potter, In order to get some time 
for play, by means of strings and latches, caused 
the beam in its motion to open and shut the valves 
without human aid. We must not despise Humphrey 
because his purpose was to gain time for play. The 
purpose of almost all inventions is to save human 
labor so that men may have more time for amuse- 
ment and rest. Humphrey Potter ought to be re- 
membered not as a lazy boy but as a great In- 
ventor. His strings and latches Improved the engine 
wonderfully (Fig. 8). Before his invention the 
piston made only six or eight strokes a minute; after 

64 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 

the valves were made to open and shut by the motion 
of the beam, it made fifteen or sixteen strokes a 
minute and the engine did more than twice as much 
work. 

Newcomen's engine as improved by Potter and 
others grew rapidly into favor. It was used most 



FIG. 8. — HUMPHREY POTTEr's LATCHES AND STRINGS. 

commonly to pump water out of the mines but it 
was put to other uses. In and about London it was 
used to supply water to large houses and in 1752 
a flour mill near Bristol was driven by a steam-engine. 
In Holland Newcomen's engines were used to assist 
the wind-mills in draining lakes. 

65 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




66 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 

For nearly seventy-five years engines were every- 
where built after the Newcomen pattern. Improve- 
ments in a small way were added now and then but 
no very important change w^as made until the latter 
part of the eighteenth century, when the steam-engine 
was made by James Watt practically what it is to-day. 
This great inventor spent years in making improve- 
ments upon Newcomen's engine (Fig. 9) and when 
his labors were finished he had done more for the 
steam-engine than any man who ever lived. We must 
try to learn what he did. We can learn what Watt 
did by studying Figure 10. Here P is a piston work- 
ing in a cylinder A closed at both ends. By the 
side of the cylinder is a valve-chest C into which 
steam passes from the pipe T. Connecting C with 
the cylinder there are two openings, one at the top 
of the cylinder and the other at the bottom, llie 
valve-chest is provided with valves which are worked 
by means of the rod F, which moves up and dow^n 
with the beam B, thanks to Humphrey Potter for the 
hint. The valves are so arranged that w^hen steam 
enters the opening at the top of the cylinder it is 
shut off from the opening at the bottom, and w^hen 
it enters the opening at the bottom it is shut off 
from the opening at the top. When the opening 
at the bottom is closed the steam will rush in at the 
upper opening and push the piston downward; when 
the piston has nearly reached the bottom of the cylin- 
der the upper opening will be closed and steam will 
rush in at the bottom of the steam chest and push 

67 



u-- 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

the piston upwards. Here was one of the things 
done by Watt for the engine : he contrived to make 
the steam push the piston down as well as up. You 



e— 




^^..v,.^^.^, 

^c^;-^ 



■^r, Af',^}^ A>Iy> ^ ^|j^> n^ I ■ . It". rV,^,r;:-rj^\V !r^l^\ \^ tftkhn \<^\ t' n 'AiM W^^< ■^^^^^ix^,^^^ 




FIG. 10. — watt's engine. 



have observed that in Newcomen's engine steam was 
used only to push the piston iip^ the atmosphere being 
relied upon to push it down. Thus we may say that 

68 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 

Watt's engine was the first real steam-engine^ for it 
was the first that was worked entirely by steam. All 
engines before it had been worked partly by steam 
and partly by air. 

Watt's greatest improvement upon the steam- 
engine is yet to be mentioned. In Newcomen's 
engine when the cold water was injected into the cyl- 
inder it cooled the piston and when steam was let into 
the cylinder again a part of it, striking the cold piston, 
was condensed before it had time to do any work and 
the power of this part of the steam was lost. Watt 
did not allow the piston to get cold, for he did not 
inject any cold water into the cylinder. In his engine 
as soon as the steam did its work it was carried off 
through the pipe M to the vessel N and there con- 
densed by means of a jet of water which was injected 
into A^ (called the condenser) by means of a pump 
E worked by the motion of the beam, thanks again 
to Humphrey Potter for the idea. This condensa- 
tion of the steam outside of the cylinder and at a 
distance from it prevented the piston (and cylinder) 
from getting cold. In other words, in the Watt en- 
gine when steam entered the cylinder it went straight 
to work pushing the piston. No steam was lost and 
no power was lost and the cost of running the en- 
gine was greatly reduced. 

It cannot be said that Watt invented the steam- 
engine — no one can claim that honor — yet he did 
so much to make it better that he well deserves the 
epitaph which is inscribed on his monument in 

69 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Westminster Abbey. This inscription is as fol- 
lows : 

NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME 
WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS 

FLOURISH 

BUT TO SHEW 

THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNT TO HONOR THOSE 

W^HO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE 

THE KING 

HIS MINISTERS AND MANY OF THE NOBLES 

AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM 

RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO 

JAMES WATT 

WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL 

GENIUS 

EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH 

TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF 

THE STEAM ENGINE 

ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY 

INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN 

AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE 

AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF 

SCIENCE 

AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD 

BORN AT GREENOCH MDCCXXXVI 

DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE 
MDCCCXIX 

But the story of the steam-engine does not end 
with Watt. It will be remembered that in the en- 
gines of Nero and of Branca the steam did its work 
by reaction or by impulse. Now soon after the time 

70 



THE STEAM-ENGINE 

of Watt, inventors turned their thoughts to the old 
engines of Nero and Branca and hegan to experiment 
with engines that would do their work by a direct 
impact of steam. After nearly a century of experi- 
menting and after many failures there was at last 
developed an engine known as the steam-turbine. 
In this engine the steam does its work by impinging 
or pushing directly upon blades (Fig. ii) which 




FIG. II. — SH.\FT OF A LARGE MARINE TURBINE. 

Within the cylinder are thousands of blades upon which the 
steam acts directly in the turning of the shaft. In the largest 
turbines there are as many as 50,000 blades. 



are connected with the shaft which is to be turned, 
and it does this in much the same manner that we saw 
the steam do its work in Branca's engine. One of 
the greatest names connected with the steam turbine 
is that of Charles Algernon Parsons of England. 
In 1884 this great inventor patented a steam-turbine 
which proved to be a commercial success and since 
that date the steam-turbine has been constantly grow- 

71 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

ing in favor. So great has been Its success on land 
and on sea that there are those who believe that the 
engine invented by Watt will in time be cast aside 
and that its place will be taken by an engine which 
is the most ancient as well as the most modern of 
steam motors. 



72 



THE PLOW 

YOU have now learned the history of those uiven- 
tions which enabled man to gain a mastery over 
fire and to use it for his comfort and convenience. 
We shall next learn the history of an invention 
which gave man the mastery of the soil and enabled 
him to take from the earth priceless treasures of 
fruit and grain. This invention was the plow. 

In his earliest state man had no use for the plow 
because he did not look to the soil as a place from 
which he was to get his food. The first men were 
hunters and they relied upon the chase for their food. 
They roamed from place to place in pursuit of 
their prey — the birds and beasts of the forest and the 
fishes of the stream. They did not remain long 
enough in one spot to sow seed and to reap the har- 
vest. Still in their wanderings they found wheat 
and barley growing wild and they ate of the seeds 
of these plants and learned that the little grains were 
good for food. They learned, too, that if the seeds 
were planted in a soil that was well stirred the plants 
would grow better than they would if the seeds were 
planted In hard ground. So by the time men had 
grown tired of wandering about and were ready to 
settle down and live in one spot they had learned two 

73 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

important facts : they knew they could add to their 
food supply by tilling the soil, and they knew that 
they could grow better crops if they would stir the 
soil before planting the seed. 

For the stirring of the soil the primitive farmer 
doubtless first used a sharpened stick such as wander- 
ing tribes carry for the purpose of digging up eatable 



/A. 



FIG. I. — THE KATTA OR DIGGING STICK. 

roots, knocking fruits down from trees, and breaking 
the heads of enemies. Such a stick known as the 
Katta (Fig. i) is carried by certain tribes in Aus- 
tralia, and we are told by travelers that the Kurubars 
of Southern India use a sharp stick when digging up 
the ground. The digging stick is used by savages in 

many parts of the world 
and we may regard it as 
the oldest of implements 
used for tilling the soil. 
/ ' "" The first plow was a 

forked stick or a limb of a 

^;^^^ tree with a projecting point 

(Fig. 2). With this im- 

FIG. 2. — THE FIRST PLOW. 11 

plement the ground was 
broken not by digging but by dragging the fork 
or projecting point of the stick through the 
ground and forming a continuous furrow. In this 

74 



^ 



THE PLOW 

forked stick we see two of the principal parts 
of the modern plow. The fork of the stick is the 
share, or cutting part of the plow, while the main part 
of the stick is the beam. 

An improvement upon the simple forked stick is 
seen in Figure 3, w^hich is copied from an ancient 
monument in Syria (in Asia Minor) . The old Syrian 
plow consists almost wholly of the natural crooks of 
a branch of a tree, the only artificial piece being the 




FIG. 3. — THE SYRIAN PLOW KNOWN AS JOB S PLOW. 

brace e which connects the share and the beam and 
holds them firm. In this crooked stick we have 
three of the main parts of the modern plow, the 
beam (a), the share (c-b) and the handle (d). The 
plow in this form requires the services of two persons 
— one to draw the plow and one to guide it and 
keep it in the ground. It is said that it was with a 
plow of this kind that the servants of Job were 
plowing when they were driven from their fields by 
the Sabeans. 

The first plows were drawn by the strength of the 

7-5 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

human body (Fig. 4). Upon a very old monument 
of ancient Egypt, the country which seems to have 
been the first home of the plow, we have a plowing 

scene w^hich shows a num- 
ber of men dragging a 
plow by means of a rope. 
I But primitive man was not 

at ail fond of labor and in 
the course of time he tamed 
t ..■■,.<'' ^^...'--^ . wild bulls and horses and 

™- ^'~ ^^ f!tn7 ^^ ''''" niade them draw the plows. 

MAN LABOR. ^ 

So upon another Egyptian 
monument of a later date we have a picture of a 
plowing scene in which animals are drawing the plow 
(Fig. 5). In this Egyptian plow we see improve- 
ments upon the crooked stick of the Syrians. The 
Egyptian plow, you observe, has a broader share. 
It will, therefore, make a wider furrow and will plow 
more ground. Moreover, it has two handles instead 
of one. Taking it 

altogether, the "^'U ?\ 

Egyptian plow was 
a fairly good imple- 
ment. ^ ^--wpi 

Many centuries 
passed before any yic 5. — the Egyptian plow. 
real improvement 

was made upon the old Egyptian plow. If there 
were any improvement anywhere it was among 
the Romans. We read in Pliny — a Roman writer 

76 



\ 



- L V Ul 



Tin: PLOW 



of the first century — of a plow that had wheels to 
regulate the depth of the plow and also a coulter^ 
that is, a knife 
fixed in front of the 
share to make the 
first cut of the sod 
(Fig. 6) . But such 
a plow was not in 
general use in 
Pliny's time. A 
thousand years 
later, however, the 
plow with wheels 
and coulter was doubtless in common use. In a pic- 
ture taken from an old Saxon print we see (Fig. 7) a 
plow w^hich was used in the time of William the Con- 
queror (1066). Here the plow has a coulter in- 
serted in the beam and there are two wheels to regu- 




FIG. 6. — PLINY's plow, 70 A. D, 



J /' 




FIC. 7. — AN OLD SAXON PLOW, 10CX3 A. n. 

late the depth to which the plow may go. This 
Saxon plow is drawn by four fine oxen and it is 
plainly a great improvement upon the old Egyptian 
plow. 

77 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

But improvements in the plow during the dark 
ages came very slowly. At the time of the discovery 
of America the plow was still the clumsy wooden 
thing it w^as five hundred years before. In the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, however, when im- 
provements were being made in so many things, it 
was natural that men should begin to think of try- 
ing to improve the plow. In an old book published 
in 1652 we read of a double plow — one which 
would plow two furrows at one time. A picture 




FIG. 8. — A DOUBLE PLOW OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

(This plow was proposed but was never made.) 

(Fig. 8) of the double plow is given in the book but 
there is no proof that such a plow was ever made or 
ever used. The world did not as yet need a double 
plow, although the time was to come when it would 
need one. 

In the early part of the eighteenth century we 
begin to see real improvements in plow making. 
About this time Dutch plowmakers began to put 
mold-boards on their plows. The purpose of the 
mold-board is to lift up and turn over the slice of 
sod cut by the share. Without the mold-board the 
plow simply runs through the ground and stirs It 

78 



THE PLOW 

up. With the mold-board of the Dutch plow (Fig. 
9) the sod was turned completely over and the weeds 
and grass were covered up. This was the kind of 
plow that was needed, for if the weeds and grass 
are not covered up the best effects of plowing are 
lost. So the mold-board was a great improvement 
and its invention marks a great event in the history 
of the plow. 

The Dutch plow was taken as a model for English 
plows and, in fact, for the plows of all nations. T^hc 




FIG. 9. — THE DUTCH PLOW SHOWING THE MOLD-BOARD. 

mold-board grew rapidly into favor and by the end 
of the eighteenth century it was found on plows in 
all civilized nations. But the plow was still made 
mostly of wood (Fig. 10) and it was still an awk- 
ward and a poorly constructed affair. The method 
of making plows about the year 1800 has been 
described as follows: '^ A mold-board was hewed 
from a tree with the grain of the timber running 
as nearly along its shape as it could well be obtained. 
On to this mold-board, to prevent its wearing out 

79 




FIG. 10. — A COLONIAL PLOW. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

too rapidly, were nailed the blade of an old hoe, 
thin strips of iron, or worn out horseshoes (Fig. lo) . 
The land side was of wood, its base and sides shod 
with thin plates of iron. The share was of iron with 
a hardened steel point. The coulter was 
tolerably well made of Iron. The beam was 
usually a straight stick. The handles, like 
the mold-board, were split from the crooked 

trunk of a tree 
or as often cut 
from Its 

branches. The beam 
was set at any pitch that 
fancy might dictate, with 
the handles fastened on 
almost at right angles with it, thus leaving the plow- 
man little control over his implement, which did its 
work in a very slow and most imperfect manner." 
But about the end of the eighteenth century the 
world was beginning to need a plow that would do 
its work rapidly and well. Population was every- 
where increasing and it was necessary to till more 
ground than had ever been tilled in former times. 
Especially was a good plow needed in the United 
States where there were vast areas of new ground to 
be broken. And it was in the United States that the 
first great improvements in the plow were made. 
Foremost among those who helped to make the plow 
a better implement was the statesman, Thomas Jef- 
ferson. This great man while traveling in France 

80 



THE PLOW 

in 1788 was struck by the clumsiness of the plows 
used in that country. In his diary he wrote: *' J he 
awkward figure of their mold-board leads one to 
consider what should be its form/' So Jefferson 
turned his attention to mold-boards. He saw that 
the mold-board ought to be so shaped that it would 
move through the ground and turn the sod with the 
least possible resistance and he planned for a mold- 
board of this kind. By 1793 he had determined 





FIG. II, 



DANIEL WEBSTER S PLOW 



what the proper form of a mold-board should be 
and had in actual use on his estate in Virginia several 
plows w^hich had mold-boards of least resistance. 
Mr. Jefferson's patterns of the mold-board have, of 
course, been Improved upon, but he has the honor 
of having invented the first mold-board that was 
constructed according to scientific and mathematical 
principles.^ 

^ Daniel Webster was another great statesman who turned 
his attention to the making of plows. He planned a plow 
(Fig. 11) and had it made in his workshop on his farm at 
Alarshfield. When the plow was ready for use, Webster him- 
self was the first man to take hold of the handles and try it. 
The plow worked well and the great man is said to have 1)een 

' 81 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

About the time Jefferson was working upon the 
mold-board, Charles Newbold, a farmer of Bur- 
lington, New Jersey, was also doing great things 
for the improvement of the plow. We have seen 
that the plow of this time was a patch work of wood 
and iron. Newbold thought the plow ought to be 
made wholly of iron and about 1796 he made one 
of cast iron, the point, share, and mold-board all 




FIG. 12. — JETHRO WOOD's PLOW, iSlQ. 

being cast in one piece. But the New Jersey farm- 
ers did not take kindly to the iron plow. . They said 
that iron poisoned the crops and caused weeds to 
grow faster than ever. So Newbold could not sell 
his plows and he was compelled to give up the busi- 
ness in despair. 

But soon the iron plow was to have its day. In 
1 8 19 Jethro Wood o^ Scipio, New York, took out 

as much delighted with his achievement as he was with any of 
his triumphs in public life at Washington. . 

82 



THE PLOW 

a patent for a plow which was made of cast iron and 
which combined the best features of the plow as 
planned by Jefferson and by Newbold. In Wood's 
plow (Fig. 12) the several parts — the point, share 
and mold-board — were so fastened together that 
when one piece wore out it could easily be replaced 
by a new piece. In Newbold's plow when one part 
wore out the whole plow was rendered useless. 
Wood's plow became very popular and by 1825 it 
was rapidly driving out the half-wooden, half-iron 
plows of the olden time. Great improvements of 
course have been made upon the plow since 18 19, but 
in the main features the best plows of to-day closely 
resemble the implement invented by Jethro Wood. 
Since our greatness as a nation is due largely to the 
plow all honor should be given to the memory of 
this inventor. '' No citizen of the United States," 
said William H. Seward, '' has conferred greater 
benefits on his country than Jethro Wood." 




i'lG. 13. — THE GANG PLOW DRAWN BY HORSES. 

8^ 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




FIG. 14. — PLOWING BY STEAM. 

The plow is drawn across the field by means of cables. 
Sometimes a traction engine moves along with the plow. 

But the plow of Jethro Wood, as excellent as it 
was, did not fully meet the needs of the western 
farmer. The sod of the vast prairies could not be 
broken fast enough with a plow of a single share. 
So about the middle of the nineteenth century the 
gang plow, a hint for which had been given long be- 
fore (p. 78) was invented, and as this new plow 
moved along three or four or five furrows were 
turned at once. At first the gang plow was drawn 
by horses (Fig. 13) but later it was drawn by steam 
(Fig. 14). 

The great gang plow drawn by steam marked the 
last step in the development of the plow. The 
forked stick drawn by human hands and making its 
feeble scratch on the ground had grown until it had 
become a mighty machine drawn across the field by 
an unseen force and leaving in its wake a broad belt 
of deeply-plowed and well-broken soil. 

84 



THE REAPER 



AFTER man had invented his rude plow and had 
learned how to till the soil and raise the grain, 
it became necessary for him to learn how to harvest 
his crop, how to gather the growing grain from the 
fields. The invention of the plow, therefore, must 
have soon been followed by the invention of the 
reaper. 

The first grain was doubtless cut with the rude 
straight knives used by primitive man. In time it 
was found that ^ ^ 

if the knife \\y'/ ^ ^^^'"'^'''''^ 

were bent it x^^_^^ // 

would cut the FIG. I.- PRIMITIVE SICKLES. U 

grain better. So the first form of the reaper was a 
curved or bent knife known as the sickle or reaping 
hook (Fig. i). The knife was fastened at one end 

f'^ to a stick which served as 

a handle. When using 
the sickle the harvester 
held the grain in one hand 
and cut it with the other. 
(Fig. 2). 

JFhen the sickle first 

FIG. 2.— REAPING WITH THE bcgaU tO bc UScd is of 
SICKLE. ° 




85 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

course unknown. Among the remains of the " stone 
^g^ " (P- 39) ^^'^ implements of flint which resemble 
the sickle, while among the remains of the so-called 
"' bronze age '' many primitive sickles made of bronze 
have been found. Nor do we know where the sickle 
was first used, although Egypt seems to have been 
the first home of the sickle just as it was the first 
home of the plow. Upon the wall of a building of 
ancient Thebes is a picture of an Egyptian harvest 
scene. Two men with sickles are cutting the wheat. 
A man following the reapers seems to be gleaning, 
that is, picking up the wheat that the reapers have 
cut. Other harvesters are carrying the grain to the 
threshing place where it is tramped out by the slow 
feet of oxen. A primitive sickle such as was used by 
the Egyptians was used by all civilized nations in 
ancient times, by the Hebrews, by the Greeks, and 
by the Romans. 

The first improvement upon the primitive sickle 
w^as made by the Romans. About the year 100 A. 
D. the Roman farmers, who were at the time the 
best farmers in the world, began to use a kind of 
scythe for cutting grass. The Roman scythe was 
simply an improved form of the sickle; it was a 
broad, heavy blade fastened on a long straight 
handle, resembling the pruning hook of to-day (Fig. 
3). The scythe was swung with both hands and it 
was used chiefly for cutting grasSo 

For more than a thousand years, after the appear- 
ance of the Roman scythe agriculture in Europe was 

86 



THE REAPER 



everywhere neglected and little or no improvement 
was made in farming implements. About the end of 
the Middle Ages, however, improvements in the form 
of the scythe began to appear. In Flanders farm- 
ers began to use an implement known as the Hain- 
ault scythe (Fig. 4). This scythe had a fine broad 
blade and a curved handle. When reaping w^ith this 
scythe the reaper with his left hand brought the 





FIG. 3. — AN 
EARLY SCYTHE. 



FIG. 4. — THE HAINAULT OK 
FLEMISH SCYTHE, WITH HOOK. 



Stalks of grain together with a hook and with 
his right hand he swung the scythe and cut the grain. 
This scythe was an improvement upon the sickle but 
it was still a very awkward implement. 

The Hainault or Flemish scythe was followed by 
the cradle scythe. On this scythe ( Fig. 5 ) there were 
wooden fingers running parallel to the blade. These 
fingers, called the cradle, caught the grain as it was 
cut and helped to leave it in a bunch. In the early 
cradle-scythe the fingers were few in number and they 
ran along the blade for only a part of its length, 
but in America during the colonial period the cradle 

87 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




^ was improved 
by lengthening 
the fingers and 
increasing their 
number. A t 
the time of the 
Revokition the 
improved 
American 

FIG. 5.— EARLY FORM OF THE CRADLE SCYTHE. ^ r a d 1 C WaS 

coming into use and by the end of the eighteenth 
century it was driving out the sickle. 

But even the excellent American cradle-scythe could 
not meet the needs of the American farmer. The 
cast iron plow which was brought into use in the 
early part of the nineteenth century (p. 82) made 
it possible to raise fields of wheat vastly larger than 
had ever been raised before. But it was of no use 
to raise great fields 
of grain unless the 
crop could be prop- 
erly harvested. 
Wheat must be cut 
just when it is ripe 
and the harvest sea- 
son lasts only a few 
days. If the broad 
American fields 
were to be plowed 
and planted there fig. 6.— the improved cradle scythe. 

88 




-oiMi^ 




J 






THE REAPER 

would have to be a reaping machine that would 
cut the grain faster than human hands could cut it 
with the scythe (Fig. 6). 

So about the year 1800 Inventors in Europe and in 
America took up the task of inventing a new kind 
of reaper. The first attempts were made in Eng- 
land where population was increasing very fast and 
where large quantities of grain were needed to feed 




FIG. 7. — THE FIRST REAPING MACHINE, 70 A. D. 

the people. The first hints for a reaper were from a 
machine which was used in Gaul nearly 2,000 years 
ago. Pliny, who described for us a wonderful plow 
used in his time (p. 77), also describes this ancient 
reaper of the Gauls. It consisted of a large hollow 
frame mounted on two wheels (Fig. 7). At the 
front of the frame there was a set of teeth which 
caught the heads of grain and tore them off. The 
heads were raked into the box by an attendant. The 
machine was pushed along by an ox. This kind of 

89 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



machine was doubtless used in Europe for a while but 
It was not a success. It passed out of use and for 
many centuries it was entirely forgotten. Still, the 
first English reaping machines were made after the 
plan of this interesting old reaper of ancient Gaul. 
The most remarkable of the early reapers was one 
invented by Henry Ogle, a schoolmaster of Reming- 
ton, England. In 1822 Ogle constructed a model 
for a reaper which was quite different from any that 
had appeared before and which bore a close re- 

semiblance to the im- 
proved reapers of a 
later date. In 
Ogle's reaper (Fig. 
8) the horse walked 
ahead beside the 
standing grain, just 
as it does now, and 
the cutting appara- 
tus was at the right, 
just as it is now. The cutter consisted of a 
frame at the front of which was a bar of iron 
armed with a row of teeth projecting forward. 
Directly under the teeth lay a long straight 
edged knife which was moved to and fro by means 
of a crank and which cut the grain as it came 
between the teeth. A reel pushed the grain toward 
the knife and there was a platform upon which the 
grain when cut might fall. Ogle's machine did not 
meet with much success yet it holds a very high place 

90 




FIG. 8. — ogle's reaper, 1822. 



THE REAPER 



in the history of reaping machines, for it had nearly 
all the parts of a modern reaper. 

English inventors did much to prepare the way for 
a good reaping machine but the first really suc- 
cessful reaper, the first reaper that actually reaped, 
was made in the United States. In the summer of 
1 83 I, Cyrus McCormick, a young blacksmith living 
In the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, made a trial 
of a reaper which 
he and his father 
had Invented — 
how much they had 
learned from Ogle 
we do not know — 
and the trial was 
successful (Fig. 
9 ) . With two 
horses he cut six 
acres of oats In an 
afternoon. '' Such 
a thing," says Mr. 
Casson In his life of McCormick, " at the time w^as 
Incredible. It was equal to the work of six laborers 
with scythes or twenty-four peasants with sickles. It 
was as marvelous as though a man had w^alked down 
the street carrying a dray horse on his back." 

Although McCormick had his reaper In successful 
operation by 1831 he did not take out a patent for 
the machine until 1834. One year before this (in 
^833) Obed Hussey, a sailor living In Baltimore, 

91 




FUi. c). 



Til 



1- lloT 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

took out a patent for a reaper that was successful 
and that was in many respects as famous a machine 
as McCormick's. So while McCormick was the first 
in the field with his invention, Hussey was the first 

to secure a patent. The ma- 
chines of McCormick and 
Hussey were very much alike: 
both had the platform, the 
^^^ ' ^'^^'^ -. iron bar armed with guards 
^^^^ and the long knife moving to 

FIG. 10.- THE KNIFE ^^^ ^^^^ ^hc most rcmark- 
BLADE OF hussey's ablc fcaturc of Hussey's ma- 

REAPER. , . 1 1 • /• 1 . 1 

chme was the knife which con- 
sisted of thin triangular plates of steel sharpened on 
two edges and riveted side by side upon a flat bar 
(Fig. lo). The saw-like teeth of Hussey's knife 
caught the wheat between the guards and cut it bet- 
ter than any knife that had as yet appeared. Both 
the McCormick reapers and the Hussey reapers were 
practical and successful and each of these inventors 
performed a noble part in giving the world the 
reaper it needed. 

The McCormick and the Hussey reapers gave new 
life to farming in the United States. Especially was 
the reaper a blessing to the Western farmers. In 
1844 McCormick took a trip through the West, 
passing through Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa. 
As he passed through Illinois he saw how badly the 
reaper was needed. He saw great fields of ripe 
wheat thrown open to be devoured by hogs and cattle 

92 



THE REAPER 











»7-— 


f 


^ 


kXi 



because there were not enough laborers to harvest 
the crops. The farmers had worked day and night 
and their wives and children had worked but they 
could not harvest the grain; they had raised more 
than the scythe and sickle could cut. McCormick 
saw that the West was the natural home for the 
reaper and in 1847 he moved to Chicago, built a 
factory, and began to make reapers. In less than a 
year he had orders for 500 machines and before ten 
years had passed he 
had sold nearly 
25,000 reapers. It 
was these reapers 
that caused the 
frontier line to 
move westward at 
the rate of thirty 
miles a year. 

Improvements 
upon the machines 
of Hussey and McCormick came thick and fast. 
One of the first improvements was to remove 
the grain from the platform in a better way. 
With the first machines a man followed the 
reaper (Figc 9) and removed the grain with a 
rake. Then a seat was provided and the man 
sat (Fig. 11) on the reaper and raked off the grain. 
Finally the sclf-rakiu^ reaper was invented. In this 
machine, as it appeared in its completed form about 
1865, the reel and rake were combined. The reel 

93 




¥IG. II. — REAPER PROVIDED WITH SEAT 
FOR THE RAKER. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

consisted of a number of revolving arms each of 
which carried a rake (Fig. 12). As the arms re- 
volved they not only moved the standing grain to- 
ward the knife, but they also swept the platform and 
raked off the wheat in neat bunches ready to be bound 
into sheaves. So the self-raking reaper saved the 




FIG. 12 — SELF-RAKING REAPER. 

labor of the man who raked the wheat from the plat- 
form. 

Because it saved the labor of one man the self-rak- 
ing reaper was for a time the king of reaping ma- 
chines. But it did not remain king long, for soon 
there came into the harvest fields a reaper that saved 
the labor of several men. This was the self-binder. 
With the older machines, as the grain was raked off 
the platform it was gathered and bound into sheaves 

94 



THE REAPER 

by men who followed the reaper, one reaper requh*- 
ing the services of three or four or live human bind- 
ers. With the self-binder (Fig. 13) the grain was 
gathered into sheaves and neatly tied without the aid 
of human hands. At first, wire was used in bind- 
ing the sheaves but by 1880 most self-binders were 



iF'^^'stx. 



^^i^k^.-'^ .atimtmm 




FIG. 13. — A SELF-BINDING REAPER. 

using twine. So the self-binder saved the labor not 
only of the man who raked the grain from the plat- 
form but it saved the labor of all the binders as well. 
The last step in the development of the reaper was 
taken when the complete harvester was invented. 
This machine cuts the standing grain, threshes it, 
winnows^ it, and places it in sacks (Fig. 14). As 

1 To winnow grain is to separate it from the chaff by a fanning 
process. 

95 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

this giant reaper travels over the field one sees on 
one side the cutting bar 15 to 25 feet in length slic- 
ing its way through the wheat, while on the other 




FIG. 14. — A COMBINED HARVESTER AND THRESHER 

side of the machine streams of grain run into sacks 
which, as fast as they are filled, are hauled to the 
barn or to the nearest railway station. The com- 
plete harvester is either drawn by horses — 30 or 
40 in number — or by a powerful engine. It cuts 
and threshes 100 acres of w^heat in a day and the 
cost is less than 50 cents an acre. It does as much 
work in a day as could have been done by a hundred 
men before the days of McCormick. Of all the 
wonderful machines used by farmers the most won- 
derful is the complete harvester, the latest and the 
greatest of reapers. 



96 



THE MILL 





FTG. I. — THE FIRST MILL. 



THE first mill was a hole made In a stationary 
rock (Fig. i). The grain was placed in the 

hole and crushed wMth a stone held in the hand. On 

Centre street in 

Trenton, New Jer- 
sey, not many years 

ago one of these 

primitive mills could 

still be seen and 

there are evidences 

that such mills once 

existed in all parts 

of the world. In those places where the earth 

did not supply the stationary rock, stones were 

brought from afar and hollowed out into cup-like 

form and in these the grind- 
ing was done. 

The mill which consisted 
of a hole in a rock and a 
stone in the hands was fol- 
lowed by the '' knocking- 
stane " and mallet ( Fig. 2 ) . 
The ** knocking-stane " was 
a mortar, or cup-shaped 

97 




FIG. 2. — THE KNOCKING 
STANE. 
7 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



v^essel made of stone; the mallet was usually made of 
wood. The grain was placed in the mortar and 
struck repeatedly with the mallet, the beating being 
kept up until a coarse flour was produced. This Is 
an exceedingly rude method of crushing grain, yet 
this is the way the people in some parts of Scotland 
grind their barley at the present time. 

At a very early 
date the '' knocking- 
s t a n e " was laid 
aside for the mortar 
and pestle (Fig. 3) 
almost everywhere. 
In this mill the grain 
instead of being 
struck with a ham- 
mer was pounded 
with a pestle. The 
bottom of the pestle 
was frequently cov- 
ered with iron in 
which grooves were 
cut. As the man 
pounded he found that when he gave the pestle a 
twirling or rotary motion as it fell it ground the 
grain much faster. We may be sure that after this 
was learned the twirling motion was always given. 

The mortar and pestle were followed by the slab- 
mill (Fig. 4) . Here the grain was ground by being 
rubbed between two stones. Dr. Livingstone, the 

98 




FIG. 3. — MORTAR AND PESTLE MILL. 



THE MILL 

great African explorer, gives the following descrip- 
tion of a slab-mill which he saw in operation in South 
Africa. '' The operator kneeling grasps the upper 



^ 




FIG. 4. — THE SLAB-MILL. • < 

millstone w^ith both hands and works it backwards 
and forwards in the hollow^ of the lower millstone, 
in the same way that a baker works his dough. 
The w^eight of the person is brought to bear on the 
movable stone and while it is pressed and pushed 
forward and backward one hand supplies every now 
and then a little grain to be bruised and ground.'' 
As we have seen, the primitive miller gradually 
learned that the pestle did better work when it fell 
with a twirling motion. I'his little bit of experience 
led to important results in the development of the 
mill. If the grinding were done better wuth a twirl- 

99 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



ing motion, why not have as much of the twirling mo- 
tion as possible ? Why not make the upper stone go 
round and round? This w^as what was done. The 
upper stone was caused to turn round and round. 
The wheel-mill, the mill of the upper and nether mill- 
stone (Fig. 5), was invented. When and where it 
was invented w^e cannot tell for it was in use among all 

civilized peoples 
before history 
began to be writ- 
ten. There were 
many kinds of 
wheel - mills 
among the na- 
tions of an- 
tiquity and in 
principle they 
were all alike 
in construction. 
How they work- 
ed may be learned by studying Figure 5 which rep- 
resents a mill used in ancient India. The upper 
stone is placed upon the pivot projecting from the 
center of the lower (nether) stone, and caused to 
revolve by means of the handle. The grain when 
placed in the hollow at the center of the upper stone 
(Fig. 5) works its way down between the stones and 
comes out at the circumference ground, bran and 
flour together. The mill was fed with grain by the 
operator. The first hopper was a human hand. 

100 



^H|^ ^"^:^H^H|H 


^^^EH 




/MH 




r.| 1 


wBbI i' 


\ -^H 


l^^^n 


1^ - ^^^^^B^^^^H 



FIG. 5. — THE UPPER AND NETHER MILL- 
STONE. 



THE MILL 



^^flT 




':^^>^m:^^: 



FIG. 6. — AN ANCIENT JEWISH MILL. 




FIG. 7. — AN OLD ROMAN MILL. 

lOI 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



We have here several pictures of ancient mills. 
Figure 6 is an ancient Jewish mill. As we look at it 

we may recall the 
words, ''Two 
women shall be 
grinding at a mill, 
the one shall b e 
taken, and the other 
left.'' ^ Figure 7 is 
an old Roman mill 
bearing a strong re- 
semblance to the 
coffee mill that is 
used in our kitchens. 



FIG. 8. — A SCOTTISH QUERN. 



Figure 8 is a Scot- 
tish quern, a mill 
that may still be 
found in use, it is 
said, in some parts 
of Scotland. Figure 
9 Is an old flour mill 
dug from the ruins 
of the city of Pom- 
peii which was de- 
stroyed by an erup- 
tion in the year 79 
A. D. Figure I o 
shows the construc- 




FIG. 9. — POAIPEIAN FLOUR MILL, 79 A. D. 



1 Matthew xxiv, 41. In ancient times nearly all the grinding 
was done by women. 

102 



THE MILL 



tion of this interesting mill. The upper (outer) 
stone is shaped like an hour-glass, the upper half of 
which serves as a hopper; the lower half turns upon 
the cone-shaped low- 
er stone and does 
the grinding. The 
mill was operated by 
the projecting han- 
dles, the operators 
walking round and 
round the mill. 
Sometimes it was 
turned by human 
power, sometimes by 
horses or oxen. 

The Pompeian 
mill shows that as 
early as the first 
century the Romans 
ground their grain 
by animal power. 

Indeed about this time a still greater change was made 
in the method of grinding grain. When Julius Caesar 
flourished (50 B. c.) men began to harness the 
power of running water and make it turn their 
mills (Fig. 11). From Figure 12 we may easily 
learn how this was done. The running water turns 
the wheel and in doing so turns the upper mill- 
stone. A hopper is suspended from the roof by 
ropes. Through this the grain passes into the mill. 

103 




FIG. 10. — SHOWING THE IXTERlUR OF 
POMPEIAN MILL. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




FIG. II. — THE FIRST WATER-MILL, 50 B. C. 




FIG. 12. — SHOWING THE INTERIOR OF THE FIRST 
WATER-MILL. 



104 



THE MILL 

Here was a great saving in human labor and a 
great advancement in mill making. A Roman writer 
of Csesar's time appreciating how great a blessing 
was the invention of the water-mill exclaimed : 

Ye maids who toiled so faithful at the mill 

Now cease from work and from these toils be still ; 

Sleep now till dawn and let the birds with glee 

Sing to the ruddy morn, on bush and tree; 

For what your hands performed so long, so true, 

Ceres ^ has charged the water-nymphs to do ; 

They come, the limpid sisters, to her call, 

And on the wheel with dashing fury fall ; 

Impel the axle with a whirling sound 

And make the massive millstone reel around 

And bring the floury heap luxuriant to the ground. 

Nothing can be simpler than the water-mill de- 
scribed above; it w^as the old mill of the upper and 
nether millstones, the old hand mill turned by water. 
That was all. Yet, as simple as it was, many cen- 
turies passed after its invention before a new princi- 
ple in flour making was discovered. There were in- 
ventions for lowering and raising the stone so as to 
grind finer or coarser as might be desired, and there 
were improvements in the kind of w^ater wheels em- 
ployed, and better methods of sifting the flour from 
the bran were discovered from time to time, but the 
water-mill invented in the time of Julius Caesar re- 
mained practically unchanged until the early part of 

^ Ceres was the goddess of grain. 

105 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

the nineteenth century, when the last step in the 

development of the mill was taken. ^ 

About 1810 millers in Austria, more particularly 

those in Vienna, began to grind their grain by passing 

It between two horizontal rollers (Fig. 13). The 

rollers were spirally groov- 
ed and turned toward each 
other. There was a wide 
difference between this proc- 
ess and the one to which the 
world was accustomed, yet 
the new method was found 

-■ to be better than the old one. 

FIG. 13.— AN EARLY FLOUR AustHan flour and Austrian 

ROLLER- MILL. 111 r t^i 

bread became famous. 1 he 
delicious Vienna bread on our tables of course has 
never seen Vienna. It is called '' Vienna bread '' 
because it is made out of a kind of flour which 
was first ground in the Austrian capital. The 
Austrian way of grinding grew rapidly into favor 
among millers everywhere. In the United States 
where there was so much wheat to be ground the 
roller process was taken up eagerly and improved 
upon as only Americans know how to improve upon 
an idea. In the flour mills of the West the grain 
was soon passing through a series of rollers. By 
the first pair of rollers the grain was simply cracked 

1 In the thirteenth century wind-power began to be used for 
turning mills, and in some countries windmills were as common 
as water-mills. 

io6 



THE MTTJ. 

into pieces somewhat coarse. Then after being 
bolted (sifted) It was passed between a second pair of 
rollers and reduced to a greater fineness. Then it 
was bolted again and passed between a third pair of 




FIG. 14. — A MODERN FLOUR ROLLER- MILL. 

rollers. The rolling and sifting continued until a 
practically pure Hour was obtained. A pure flour 
is the modern miller's ideal. He wants a branless 
flour and a flourless bran. The old stone mill could 
not grind this kind of flour. Before the roller mill 

107 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

appeared there was always bran In the flour and 
flour in the bran. 

The invention of the flour roller-mill (Fig. 14) 
is the last step in the development of the mill. The 
roller process has almost entirely driven out all other 
processes. Now and then we see by the roadside 
an old fashioned mill with the upper and nether 
stone, but we seldom see one that is prosperous 
and thriving. Millers, like everybody else in these 
days, do business on a large scale and to make flour 
on a large scale they must use the roller-mill. Thus 
the hole in the rock in which a handful of grain was 
laboriously crushed has, through long ages of growth, 
become the great factory in which thousands of bar- 
rels of flour are made in a day. 




*^g:; 



108 



THE LOOM 

HAVE you ever seen a loom ? It would not be a 
wonder if you have not. In these days the 
average person seldom sees one. Everyone knows in 
a vague sort of way that clothes and carpets are made 
of wool or silk or cotton, as the case may be, and 
that they are woven upon an instrument called a loom. 
This is about as much as we usually know about the 
clothes we wear or the carpets w^e walk upon. We 
buy these things from the store and that is all there 
is to it. In the olden times, and not so very long 
ago either, everybody knew something about weaving, 
at least every girl and woman knew something of 
the art, and a loom was as familiar an object in the 
household then as a sewing machine is now. 

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaff spinning the golden 
Flax for the gossiping loom, w^hose noisy shuttle within doors 
Mingled their sounds with the whir of the wheels and the 
songs of the maidens. 

This picture of home life in Acadia tw^o hundred 
years ago would have served as a picture of home 
life almost everywhere in the civilized world. From 
the beginning of history until modern times most of 

109 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



was done by the women 



in 



the 




the weaving 
home. 

The earhest practical weaver on record is the spider 
and it may be that man learned his first lesson in 

weaving from this skill- 
ed little workman (Fig. 
I ) ; or the beautiful 
nest of the weaver-bird 
may have given to hu- 
man beings the first 
hints in the weaving 
art. Whoever may 
have been his teacher, 
it is certain that man 
learned how to weave 
in the earliest stages of 
existence. It is thought 
that his first effort in this direction consisted in 
making cages for animals and wiers (traps) for 
catching fish (Fig. 2) by interlacing vines or canes 
or slender boughs. The next step was taken when 
women began to make baskets and cradles and mats 
by interlacing long slender strips of wood (Fig. 3). 
Basket weaving led to cloth weaving, and this 
led to the loom. In Figure 4 we see the simplest 
and oldest form of the loom. It consisted of a single 
stick (yarn beam) of wood about four feet long. 
This was the first form of the loom — just a straight 
stick of w^ood and nothing more. From the stick the 
threads which run lengthwise in the cloth were sus- 

IIO 



FIG. 



I. — THE FIRST LESSON 
WEAVING. 



IN 



THE LOOM 







FIG. 2. — A WIER TRAP OK THE VIKGlNiA INDIANS. 










FIG. 3 — PRIMITIVE BASKET MAKING. 
I I I 



V 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

pended. These threads are known as the zvarpo 
The threads which run breadthwise in the cloth are 
known as the zveft, or zvoof. As the woman's deft 




FIG. 4. — THE PRIMITIVE LOOM. 



fingers pass along with the weft she carries the thread 
over the first w^arp thread, under the second, over 
the third, under the fourth, and so on. Here we 
have not only the simplest form of the loom but the 
simplest kind of cloth. 

In the loom worked by the Pueblo woman (Fig. 5) 
a new piece appears. This is the frame through 
which the threads of the warp pass and which the 
woman is holding in her right hand. The frame 
is called a heald, or heddle (Fig. 6). The heddle is 
of the greatest importance in the construction of the 

112 



THE LOOM 







"^^ 



^<'>- 



W ■ - 



f'ym) 0^ 







FIG. V — THE PUEIILO LOOM. 



loom and it is well worth while to understand what 
it does. In the loom operated by the Chilcoot woman 
(Fig. 4) you noticed that the weaver passed the weft 
thread above and below the alternate threads of the 
warp. This required a separate movement for every 
thread of the warp; if there were a hundred threads 
a hundred movements were required to pass the weft 
across once. Now the heddle used by the Pueblo 
woman separated the fifty warp threads that were 
to pass above the weft thread from the fifty that 
were to pass below it, making an opening called a 
shed. When the shed was made the weft thread 
could be passed across at one movement. One move- 
ment instead of a hundred! How w^as this accom- 
plished? Fifty alternate w^arp threads were passed 
through the holes in the bars of the heddle 
frame, one thread through each hole; the other 
fifty alternate threads passed between the bars 
^ 113 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

of the heddle frame. Now suppose the entire 
warp of a hundred threads is stretched tight and 
firm between the woman's body and the yarn 
beam. With her right hand she raises the heddle 
and thus hfts the fifty threads which pass through the 
holes in the bars, w^hile the other fifty threads remain 
unmoved. This movement makes the passage or 




FIG. 6. — THE HEDDLE. 

shed through which she passes the weft with the left 
hand. After beating the weft thread close to the 
cloth either with the fingers or with a sword-like 
stick, she lowers the heddle with its fifty threads, the 
other fifty still remain fixed and unmoved. Another 
shed is formed and the weft is passed through again. 
Thus with the raising and lowering of the heddle the 
weft is passed backward and forward and the weav- 

114 



THE LOOM 



Ing goes on quite rapidly. If you care to do so you 
can make a Pueblo loom and can weave a belt on it. 
In the old African loom represented in Fig. 7 we 
find several i m - 
provements upon 
the loom of the 
Pueblo woman. In 
the first place, it has 
two heddles instead 
of one. These are 
operated by the feet, 
leaving the hands 
free to do other 
work. In the second 
place, the wooden 
frame which the 
weaver holds in his 
right hand is not 
t o be seen in the 
Pueblo loom. This 
frame called the batten^ or lathc^ contains the rced^ 
which is a series of slats or bars between which 
the threads of the warp pass after they leave the 
heddle. When the weaver has thrown the weft 
through the shed he brings the batten down hard and 
the reed drives the last weft thread close to the 
woven part of the cloth. The reed takes the place 
of the sword-like stick used by the Pueblo woman. 
Last and most important: in the African's left hand 
is the shuttle J or little car — weaver's ship, the Ger- 

115 




FIG. 



AN ULD AFRICAN LOOM. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

mans call it — which carries the weft across 
(Fig. 8). 

The loom described above seems to be clumsy and 
rude when compared with a loom of the present day, 
yet it is really the kind of loom which was used by 



FIG. 8. — A PRIMITIVE SHUTTLE. 

nearly all civilized people from the dawn of their civ- 
ilization to the middle of the eighteenth century. It 
is the loom of history and poetry and song. Upon a 
loom of this kind was woven Joseph's coat with its 
many colors and the garment which the fair Penelope 
made when she deceived her suitors. Of course as 
the centuries passed the parts of the loom were better 
made and weavers became more skilful. In Figure 9 
we have the loom as it appeared in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. If we inspect it closely we shall find it to be 
merely the old African loom mounted on stout up- 
right timbers instead of being mounted on a tripod 
made of poles. With her feet the weaver works the 
heddle, with her right hand she throws the shuttle, 
with her left she draws toward her the swinging 
batten and drives the weft home with the reed. 

The year 1733 is a most important date in the 
development of the loom for in that year John Kay, 
a practical loommaker of Lancashire, England, in- 
vented the flying shuttle and thus did more for the 

116 



THE LOOM 

loom than any man whom wc can distinguish by 
name. To appreciate the great service of Kay we 
must recall how the shuttle was operated before his 
time. You remember it was thrown through the 



^- . 




FIG. 9. — A LOOM OF THE SIXTEEXTH CEXTURY. 



shed by one of the weaver's hands and caught and 
returned by the other hand. Sometimes it w^as 
caught and returned by a boy. This was at best a 
slow process and unless the weaver had an assistant 

117 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

to return the shuttle only narrow pieces could be 
woven. The common width of cloth, three-fourths 
of a yard, had its origin in necessity. The weav- 
er's arms w^ere not long enough to weave a wider 
piece. '' The essence of Kay's invention was that 
the shuttle was thrown from side to side by a me- 
chanical device instead of being passed from hand 
to hand. One hand only was required for the shuttle 
while the other was left free to beat up the cloth 



M I 



FIG. 10. — KAy's flying SHUTTLE. 

(with the batten) after each throw, and the shuttle 
would fly across w^ide cloth as well as narrow." 
You will be able to understand Kay's invention by 
studying Figure lo which show^s how the flying shuttle 
worked. G is a groove (shuttle-race) on which the 
shuttle runs as it crosses through the shed leaving 
its thread behind it. / and / are boxes which the 
shuttle (Fig. ii) enters at the end of the journey. 
In each box is a driver K sliding freely on the 
polished rod F. The weaver with his right hand 

Ii8 



THE LOOM 

pulls the handle H and K drives the shuttle to the 
opposite side. With his left hand he works the 
reed, with his feet he w^orks the heddle. 

The profits of Kay's invention were stolen, his 
house was destroyed by a mob and he himself was 
driven to a foreign country where he died in poverty. 
Yet he deserves high rank among the benefactors 
of mankind, for the flying shuttle doubled the power 
of the loom and improved the quality of the cloth 





FIG. II. — A MODERN SHUTTl.K. 



woven. Kay's invention was the first step in a great 
industrial revolution. The increased power of the 
loom called for more yarn than the old spinning 
wheel could supply. Hargreaves and Arkwright set 
their wits to w^ork and made their wonderful spin- 
ning machine, and the demands of the loom were 
supplied. So great was the supply of yarn that the 
hand loom was behind with its work. Then in order 
to keep up with the spinning machine the pozver- 
loom was invented. Heddle and batten and shuttle 
were now driven by a force of nature and all the 
weaver had to do was to keep the shuttle filled with 
thread and see that his loom worked properly. At 
first the water-wheel was used to drive the power- 
loom but later the steam-engine was made to do this 

119 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

work. All this was changing the face of the civ- 
ilized world. Hitherto weavers and spinners had 
worked for themselves in their homes or in their own 
shops; now they were gathered in large factories 
where they worked as wage earners for an employer. 
Hitherto industry had been carried on in small vil- 
lages; the great factories drew the people to large 
industrial centers and the era of crowded cities be- 
gan. 

Following the invention of the power-loom in the 
latter half of the eighteenth century came the in- 
vention of Joseph Jacquard of Lyons, France. This 
very ingenious man in 1801 invented a substitute for 
the heddle. We cannot readily understand the 
workings of Jacquard's wonderful '' attachment/' as 
his substitute for the heddle is called, but we ought 
to know what the great Frenchman did for the loom. 
In Figure 12 you see that the cloth which is ex- 
posed shows that beautiful designs have been woven 
into it. This is what Jacquard did for the loom. 
He made it weave into the cloth whatever design, 
color or tint one might desire. He made the loom 
a mechanical artist rivaling in excellence the work of a 
human artist. The Jacquard loom has brought 
about a revolution in man's, and especially in woman's 
dress. With the old loom, colors and designs could 
be woven into cloth but only very slowly, and goods 
with fancy patterns were made at a cost that was 
so great that only the rich could afford to buy. In 
the olden times, therefore, almost everybody wore 

120 



THE LOOM 




FIG. 12. — THE JACQUARD LOOM. 

121 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

plain clothes. With Jacquard's attachment the most 
beautiful figures can be cheaply woven into the com- 
monest fabrics. As fas as weaving is concerned, it 
costs no more to have beautiful figures in cotton 
goods than it does to have them in silk. As a re- 
sult the poor as well as the rich can dress as their 
taste and fancy may suggest. 

The last century brought improvements in the 
weaving art as every century before it brought im- 
provements, but the changes made since Jacquard's 
time need not concern us. The story of the loom 
ends with the Jacquard '' attachment." Perhaps no 
other of man's inventions has a more interesting de- 
velopment than the loom. We can see it grow, piece 
by piece. First a simple stick from which dangle the 
threads of the warp; then the heddle, then the shut- 
tle, then the reed, then the shuttle-race and the 
swiftly flying shuttle, and last the Frenchman's won- 
derful device for weaving in colors and fancy figures. 

At the time when Kay and Arkwright gave their 
inventions to the world the fabrics of the loom were 
made chiefly of wool. But the new power looms 
worked so fast that all the sheep in the world did 
not carry on their backs enough wool to keep the 
weavers busy. So manufacturers began to use cot- 
ton In larger quantities than it had ever been used 
before. But it was soon found difficult to get 
enough cotton for the looms. Cotton, it was true, 
could be raised in very large quantities but it could 
be cleaned and made ready for the loom only in small 

122 



THE LOOM 

quantities and at great labor and expense. The 
seed of the cotton had to be separated from the 
fiber either by hand or by means of a rude machine 




FIG. 13. — AN ANCIENT COTTON GIN. 

(By passing the cotton through the rollers some of the seeds 
were removed but the cotton was not cleaned.) 

(Fig. 13) which did its work very slowly and in a 
very unsatisfactory manner. To separate the seed 
from a single pound of the cotton fiber by hand re- 
quired the labor of a workman for an entire day. 
There was a demand, therefore, for a machine that 
woulc;! clean the cotton rapidly and at a reasonable 
cost. In 1792 Eli Whitney, a native of Massachu- 
setts, came forward with an invention known as the 
cotton-gin. This machine in its first form was a 
simple affair (Fig. 14) but it could clean a hundred 
pounds of cotton in a day. Now the manufacturers 
could get for their looms all the cotton they wanted, 

123 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

for the effect of the cotton-gin upon the production 
of cotton was enormous. In 1791 the cotton crop 




FIG. 14.— Whitney's first cotton gin and the great cotton 

GIN OF to-day. 

of the United States was only 2,000,000 pounds; 
ten years later the crop was nearly 50,000,000 
pounds ! 



124 



THE NEEDLE 

AS soon as men had learned how to weave it be- 
came necessary for them to learn how to sew. 
The cloth made at the loom had to be cut into pieces 
for the making of garments that would fit the hu- 
man body and the different pieces of cloth had to 
be fastened together. The instrument invented for 
fastening together two pieces of cloth or leather was 
the Needle, — one of the earliest and most simple 
of inventions, and one of the most useful. 

In very early times garments were often made of 
large leaves ^ fastened together by means of thorns 
or by slender sharp-pointed rods of wood. Here the 
sewing was done without the thread, the needle be- 
ing a kind of a pin which served as both needle and 



wispW^P^^i^^?'^ 




FIG. I. — THE FIRST NEEDLE. 

thread. But primitive people were often clad in 
garments made of the skins of wild beasts. Where 
this was the case the skins were sewed together with 
the sinews of animals or with thin strips of leather. 
By means of an awl holes were made near the edges 

1 See Genesis, Chap. Ill, 7. 

125 



STORIES OF USEFUL LWENTIONS 

of the two skins that were to be joined and the 
sinew or leather strip was passed through the holes, 
running first through a hole in one skin and then 
through a hole in the other. Here was the needle 
in its first form; it was simply an awl (Fig. i). 

As long as the needle was entirely separated from 
the thread the making of a seam was a double task: 
first the holes had to be pierced with the awl and 
then the thread had to be patiently passed through 
the holes. At a very early period, however, a way 



cs 



iirrvT iTi""'^'^ 



III ir -"-^ ■'-'.^>-.>-*>r.>^.^ 



(S 



FIG. 2. — BOXE NEEDLES WITH EYES. 

was found by which needle and thread could be 
worked together. At first one end of the needle 
was sharpened into a fine point while the other end 
was notched, the notch being made so that the thread 
could be tied to the needle. With the needle and 
thread thus fastened together the sewing could go 
on much faster, for as soon as a hole was pierced the 
thread could be drawn through without loss of time. 
But the needle with the notch was a clumsy affair 
and it was not long before a hole, known as the eye, 
was made for holding the thread. Sometimes the 
eye was at the blunt end of the needle and some- 
times it was at the center. 

Needles with eyes were invented at a very early 

126 



THE NEEDLE 



stage of human 
development. 
Stone needles 

with eyes were 
used as far back 
as the stone age 
(p. 38). Needles 
of bone carefully 
smoothed and 
havingwell-drilled 
eyes (Fig. 2) 
w^ e r e in use 
among the men 
when they still 
lived in caves. 
During the 
bronze age the 
bone needle was 
cast aside and 
the bronze 
needle took its 
place (Fig. 3). 





FIG. 4. — BRONZE 
THIMBLE. 



FIG. 3. — NEEDLES MADE OF BRONZE. 

It was during the bronze age also 
that the thimble, that most useful 
helpmate of the needle, made its 
appearance (Fig. 4). After the 
iron age w^as ushered in and men 
had learned how to make steel, 
127 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

the bronze needle gradually disappeared and needles 
were everywhere made of tine steel. 

The simple steel needle with its sharp point and 




FIG. 5. — NEEDLE WORK OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

(An embroidered ccpe.) 



its neatly drilled eye was for many thousands of 
years the only instrument with which sewing was 
done. But no invention was brought into more con- 
stant use than the needle, for in the olden times 
every female member of the household learned the 
art of sewing. The daughters of the rich and great 
as well as the daughters of the poor and lowly were 
carefully taught to use the needle with skill. Prin- 
cesses and high born ladies did not always learn to 

128 



THE NEEDLE 

read but they always learned to sew, and learned to 
sew well. Women of rank who were not compelled 
to do plaui sewing spent much of their time in em- 
broidering and their deft, swift fingers produced 
many beautiful and wonderful designs (Fig. 5). 

But the time came when human fingers could no 
longer perform all the sew^ing that was to be done, 
no matter how swiftly seamstresses plied the needle 
or how long were the hours they spent at their 
task. For the wonderful weaving machines invented 
in the latter part of the eighteenth century were 
soon turning out more cloth than could be sewed 
into garments by the old-time needle. So inventors 
set to work to make a needle that would keep pace 
with the loom: they undertook to make a machine 
that would sew. 

As early as 1770 Thomas Alsop, an Englishman, 
patented a machine for doing embroidery w^ork. 
The needle of Alsop's machine w^as double-pointed 
and its eye was located in the center. Alsop's in- 
vention led to the making of machines that w^ould 
embroider in excellent fashion, but the sewing-ma- 
chine — the machine that would make a seam — was 
still to be invented. 

The first important step in the invention of the 
sewing-machine was taken in 1790 w^hen Thomas 
Saint, an English cabinet maker, secured a patent 
for a machine (Fig 6) which had many of the fea- 
tures found in the familiar sewing-machine of to- 
day. It had an overhanging arm at the end of 
^ 129 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

which was attached a needle which moved up and 
down; it had a thread spool from which the thread 
was wound continuously; and It had a device for 






m 


r\ 


V . ^ nt. \ 






-■»., — JLj 




.^. 












.£_ . .X -t 1 



Wl 



FIG. 6. — saint's sewing machine. (1790.) 

moving the cloth along after it was stitched. But 
the invention of Saint existed only on paper. No 
machine under his patent was ever made and even 
the drawings and the description of the machine lay 
for many years buried in the English patent office 
unknown to the world. Nevertheless Saint has the 
honor of having been the first inventor to plan for 
a connected piece of machinery that would sew, and 
his invention must be regarded as the forerunner of 
the sewing-machine of to-day. 

The first sewing-machine ever made and put into 

130 



THE NEEDLE 



practical use was invented in 1830 by an humble 
French tailor named Ihimonier. This machine re- 
sembles that of Saint, although it is not known that 
the Frenchman ever saw or heard of the English- 
man's patent. One of the features of Thimonier's 
machine was a treadle and cord for moving the 
needle (Fig. 7). The invention of the Frenchman 
was so successful 
that about eighty of 
his sewing-machines 
were manufactured 
and put into use for 
sewing the clothes of 
the soldiers of the 
French army. But 
the working people 
were afraid that the 
new sewing-machine 
would throw tailors 
and seamstresses out 
of employment. Thi- 
monier's first ma- 
chines were destroyed 
by a mob and the in- 
ventor barely escaped with his life. It was not long, 
however, before he had made another and a better 
machine, one that would sew two hundred stitches 
in a minute. He made a second attempt to intro- 
duce his machine in the shops of Paris but again he 
was attacked by a mob and all of his machines were 




FIG. 7. — THIMONIERS SEWING 
MACHINE. (1830.) 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

destroyed. So Thimonier was baffled in his plans 
by the very people whose labors he was trying to 
make lighter. He died broken-hearted in a 
poorhouse but his name will never be forgotten, for 
he was the first to show the world that stitches 
could really be made w^ithout the aid of human fin- 
gers. 

While inventors in England and France were try- 
ing to make a machine that would sew, inventors 
in our own country were also busy at work along the 
same line. About 1833 Walter Hunt of New York 
built a machine which had an eye-pointed needle 
and a shuttle which worked so as to make a lock 
stitch: that is, the eye-pointed needle carried one 
thread through the fabric to be sewed while the 
shuttle carri-ed a second thread through the loops 
formed by the first and thus locked the threads to- 
gether (Fig. 8). This was the first lock-stitch ma- 




ne. 8. — SECTION SHOWING LOCK-STITCH. 

chine ever made. But Hunt did not make a success 
of his invention. He laid his machine aside before 
he had fully completed it and he failed to secure 
a patent for it. He applied for a patent in 1854 
but he was then too late, for eight years before an- 
other inventor had secured a patent on a sewing- 
machine which possessed the main features of the 

132 



THE NEEDLE 

Hunt machine. So Hunt was refused a patent and 
like many another inventor he reaped no reward for 
his invention. 

The invention which stood in the way of Hunt 
was a sewing-machine invented in 1846 by Elias 
Howe. The story of Howe and his sewing-machine 
is one of the most interesting in all the history of 
invention. How^e was born in Spencer, Massachu- 
setts, in 1 8 19. His father was a farmer and a 
miller. As soon as he was old enough young Howe 
began to work on the farm but he soon found that 
he was too frail in body for the heavy work of the 
farm. So at the age of sixteen he secured work in 
a machine shop at Lowell where he remained for 
two years and then found employment in a shop in 
Boston. In the year 1839, while at work in the 
shop, he heard a man say that a fortune was in 
store for the man who would invent a sewing-ma- 
chine. This chance remark sank deep into his mind 
and he began to w^onder if he could not invent such 
a machine. For several years he fixed his mind 
upon the art of sewing, watching carefully the pro- 
cess as it was performed by the hand. The more 
he thought about the matter the more firmly he be- 
came convinced that sewing could be done by ma- 
chinery. So about 1844 he undertook the task of 
making a sewing-machine. He w^as now married 
and was very poor. His w^eekly w^age was only 
nine dollars yet out of this sum five mouths had to 
be fed and five backs had to be clothed. There 

133 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

were strong reasons, therefore, why the inventor 
should go about his work in earnest. 

And Howe did go about his work in earnest. In 
December, 1844, he began to make the parts of 
his machine and by May, 1845, it was completed. 
The new machine sewed perfectly at the rate of two 
hundred and fifty stitches a minute, which was about 
seven times as fast as the work could be done by 
hand. In order to show what his machine could 
do Howe challenged five of the swiftest seamstresses 
that could be found to sew a race. ^' Ten seams of 
equal length were prepared for sewing, five of which 
were laid for the machine and the other five given 
to the girls. Mr. Howe finished his five seams a 
little sooner than the girls finished their five, and 
the work done on the machine was the neatest and 
the strongest.'' Here at last was a machine that 
would make it possible for the needle to keep pace 
with the loom ! 

For several years it seemed that Howe would 
have no better luck with his machine than poor 
Thimonier had had with his. In spite of the fact 
that the Howe machine could ply the needle five 
times as fast as it could be plied by the hand, no 
machines were bought. In America as in France it 
was feared that a sewing-machine would take bread 
from the mouths of those who sewed by hand. Then 
the cost of the machine — about $300 — was so 
great that the ordinary tailor or seamstress could 
not afford to buy one. 

134 



THE NEEDLE 




Howe secured a patent in the United States for 
his machine (Fig. 9) in 1846. In the autumn of 
1846 he went to England where he sold his invention 
to a manufacturer who had 
faith in it. But he made 
a bad bargain and it was 
not long before he found 
himself a penniless stranger 
in a foreign land. Once 
when he was almost starv- 
ing he borrowed a few pen- %j|| 
nies from a friend and 
bought some beans which 
he cooked and ate in his 
room. In 1849 he re- 
turned to America as a 
steerage pasenger. When 
he landed in New York he had half a crown in his 
pocket. For more than five years he had given 
his whole life to his invention and his reward was a 
small silver coin ! 

But soon the tide of fortune turned. Upon 
Howe's return to America he found to his surprise 
that sewing-machines in considerable numbers were 
being sold in Boston and elsewhere. But these ma- 
chines were imitations; they contained the very de- 
vices patented by Howe in 1846. Now when a 
machine is patented it can be lawfully manufactured 
only by the inventor himself or by some one to whom 
the inventor has given the right to manufacture it. 

135 



FIG. 9. — Howe's first 

S E\V I X G M AC H I N E. ( I 846. ) 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Accordingly Howe brought suit against the men who 
were manufacturing the machines and after a long 
battle he won his suit; the courts decided that Howe 
had invented and patented the sewing-machine and 
that no one could make or sell the same kind of 
machine without the inventor's consent. After this 
victory In the courts Howe began to reap a golden 
harvest. Sewing-machines were manufactured by 
the hundreds of thousands and upon every machine 
sold the inventor received a handsome sum. In 
one year Howe received an income of $200,000, 
and altogether his profits from the machine 
amounted to more than $2,000,000. Few inven- 
tors have endured greater hardships than Howe and 
few have been so richly rewarded. 



136 



THE GUN 

WHILE the women in early times were work- 
ing at the loom and wath the needle, the 
men were occupied almost entirely in hunting and 
fighting: hunting for the beasts and birds that might 
serve as food; fighting in defense of their own per- 
sons or in behalf of the family or tribe. Both in the 
chase and in war there w^as need of a weapon that 
could be hurled through the air, and success often 
depended upon the kind of weapon that was used. 
The great problem, therefore, which the first hun- 
ters and warriors had to solve was the problem of 
the Gun and all through history the same problem 
has presented itself. To-day every powerful nation 
is trying to make a gun better than can be made by 
any other nation. Indeed, the very life of a nation 
often depends upon the kind of gun its soldiers use. 
Since the gun has played, and is now playing, such 
an important part in human affairs its story is well 
worth learning. 

The first gun, of course, was the human hand 
and the first bullet was the crude stick or stone which 
was hurled by the force of the human arm. Im- 
provements in the sticks or stones which were to be 
used as weapons began to be made in the earliest 

137 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




age. A stone which was sharpened proved to be 
more effective than one which was blunt; a stick 
with a heavy knot at one end proved to be better 
for throwing and cracking skulls than a straight one 

(Fig. I). 

One of the first 
weapons invented 
by man is still in 
use among savages 
in Australia. This 
is the curved 
throwing - stick 
known as the 
boomerang (Fig. 
FIG. I.— THROWING CLUBS. 2). Thls curious 

weapon is about two feet long and is flatter on one 
side than on the other. It makes a winding path 
through the air and can be made to fall behind the 
one who throws it. When hurled at a retreating 
enemy it first passes beyond the one at whom it is 
thrown and then 
circles and returns, 
striking its victim 
in front. 

If we define a 
gun as a machine 
for hurling weap- 
ons through the 
air the first artifi- 
cial gun was doubt- 

138 




FIG. 2. — BOOMERANGS, 



THE GUN 




FIG. 3. — A STICK-SLING. 



less the sling. The earliest :in<\ simplest sling con- 
sisted of a stick, in one end of which was a hole or 
slit for the sling-stone. This kind of sling is often 
used by boys at the present time. Sometimes the 
sling-stone rested in a leather pocket at the end of 
the stick (Fig. 3). The sling with which David 
flung the stone at Goliath ^ 
was a stick-sling. The stick- 
sling was follow^ed by the rib- 
bon-sling (Fig. 4) the kind 
with which boys are now 
most familiar. Ribbon slings 
were invented in the barbarous age but they con- 
tinued to be used far into civilized times. In the 
army of Benjamin (1500 B. C.) there were ^^ seven 

hundred chosen 

men, left-handed, 
every one of whom 
could sling stones at 
a hair's breadth. 
In the armies of the 
ancient Greeks and 
Romans there was 
almost ahvays a 
regiment of trained slingers. The inhabitants of 
the Balearic Isles were especially remarkable for 
their skill with the sling. Speaking of these people 
the historian Strabo says: ''With slings they 

II Sam. XVII, 43. The "staves" referred to by Goliath were 
the shepherd's staff and the stick-sling. 



«==I2^ 




FIG. 4. — THE RIBBON SLING. 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

throw large stones — better than other people. 
They attain this dexterity by constant practice from 
their youth up, for the mothers fix a loaf of bread 
on the top of a high pole and the boys must starve 
until they have hit and knocked down the bread.'' 
The sling-stones or bullets used in the sling were 

sometimes fashioned with 
great care. In Figure 5 
w^e have a sling-bullet of 
the ancient Greeks. On the 
bullet is inscribed a Greek 
SLING-BULLET WITH word mcauing ^' show 
INSCRIPTION. yourself," evidently in- 

tended to taunt the one at whom the bullet was 
thrown. 

Following the thrownng-stick and the sling came 
the bow and arrow, the weapon through which we 
must trace the development of the modern gun. In 
its simplest and earliest form the bow was a strong 
elastic strip of wood with a string stretched between 
its two ends (Fig. 6). Side by side w^ith the sling 
the bow was used in chase and in war all over the 
earth among ancient tribes and peoples and con- 
tinued to be used far into modern times. In the 
hands of the English it was a most dangerous 
weapon. A story is told of an English bowman who 
tied his son, a lad of seven years, to a stake 120 
yards off and sent an arrow through an apple placed 
on his head. A similar story is told of the Swiss 
patriot William Tell. 

T40 



THE gUN 

The force and flight of the arrow which sped 
from the simple bow depended upon the unaided 
strength of the human arm. It was no use to make 
a bow^ stronger than the warrior or hunter who was 
to bend it. About the beginning of the thirteenth 




FIG. 6. — BOW AND ARROW 



century the cross-bow, or gun-bow began to be used 
in Europe. The cross-bow of the middle ages was 
bent by machinery, by a lever or a windlass (Fig. 
7). The bow was attached at right angles to a 
wooden stock (stick) in w^hich there was a groove 
or barrel to direct the flight of the arrow. When 
the bow was properly draw^n the string caught in a 
notch made in the stock and remained there until 
released by a trigger. After bending his bow the 
bowman removed the windlass and when he was 
ready to shoot placed the arrow in the groove, took 
aim and pulled the trigger. 

Now that the bending of the bow could be done 
by machinery bows of great firmness and toughness 

141 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

were made, and they were made of steel as well 
as of wood. A good cross-bow could hurl an ar- 
row 700 yards — nearly half a mile. It proved 
to be such a deadly weapon that its use was for- 
bidden by the church and in some countries it was 
forbidden by law. This opposition, however, had 




FIG. 7. — WARRIORS ARMED WITH CROSS-BOWS. 

(The soldier in the center is bending his bow by means of a 
windlass.) 

but little effect. Soldiers will always have the best 
possible gun. In spite of the law and the ban of 
the church the bow-gun continued to be improved 
upon and used until it was displaced by a better gun. 
The cross-bow was good for fighting in the open 

142 



THE GUN 

field, but it was not powerful enough to batter down 
the thick walls of the castle behind which the barons 
of the middle ages sheltered themselves. What was 
wanted in the fourteenth century was a gun power- 
ful enough to break down these walls so that an 
army might enter and punish the barons for their 
cruelty and injustice. And it was not long before 
such a gun was found. 

Early in the thirteenth century — the century so 
remarkable in the history of human progress — 
Roger Bacon, an English monk, wrote the follow- 
ing words: ''Mix together salt peter, charcoal 
and sulphur, and you will make thunder and light- 
ning, if you know how to mix them.'' It had been 
known for many centuries that the materials men- 
tioned by Bacon would make a powerful explosive. 
The Roman candle which we see on the Fourth of 
July was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans 
and was sometimes used to terrify an enemy. In 
this candle there was a mixture of salt peter, sul- 
phur and charcoal. Nevertheless, the secret of 
mixing them in the right proportions was in Bacon's 
time known to but very few. About 1320 a Ger- 
man monk named Schwartz mixed 75 parts of salt 
peter, 13 parts of charcoal and 12 parts of sulphur 
together and touched the mixture on fire. The re- 
sult was a violent and disastrous explosion. The 
monk seems to have told others how to make the 
mixture for in a few years it was known all over 
Europe how to mix the three materials so as to make 

H3 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

a powder that would explode with great violence. 
One of the first things done with the powder was to 
experiment with it in hurling missiles. When placed 
in an iron or brass tube behind a stone or a bullet 
the powder exploded and drove the missile out with 




FIG. 8. — AN OLD CANNON. 

tremendous force. When it was learned that the 
new powder could be used for discharging a gun the 
name of gunpowder w^as given to it. 

The first gun in which gunpowder was used was the 
cannon. A large tube or barrel made of strips of 
wood or of iron bars was joined together lengthwise 
and around the tube on the outside was wrapped a 
rope or wire to give strength (Fig. 8). Such a can- 
non was used in the famous battle of Cressy ( 1346) . 
At first the cannon ball, made of ^tone or lead, 
weighed only three or four pounds, but by the end of 
the fourteenth century cannons w^ere throwing balls 
weighing more than 200 pounds. Here was the 
gun that was to destroy the power of the barons. 
The huge cannon leveled the castle walls and in do- 
ing this changed the face of civilization. With 
cannon at their command the peasants could defy 

144 



THE GUN 

the nobility and successfully claim their rights as 
freemen. Of course great improvements have been 
made upon the rude cannon used in the battle of 
Cressy. As century after century has passed the 
cannons have been made to throw larger and larger 
balls and to throw them further and further and 
faster and faster. One of the greatest triumphs in 
the art of cannon making is seen in the big gun on 
Sandy Hook. This monster of destruction and de- 
fense will throw with a velocity of 2,500 feet a sec- 
ond a ball weighing a ton through a distance of 20 
miles. 

Although gunpowder was first used for firing 
heavy cannon it w^as also gradually brought into use 




FIG. 9. — A CROSS-BOW OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

for firing lighter guns. In Figure 9 we see an im- 
proved cross-bow of the sixteenth century. Its 
shape reminds us of a long-barreled gun of the pres- 
ent time. Indeed it was but a short step from the 
cross-bow to the gun in which powder was used. 

145 



zo 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

The improved cross-bow had a stock, a barrel and 
a trigger. The chief difference between the cross- 
bow and the gun was this : in the cross-bow the force 
which hurled the missile was supplied by the bow 
and string; in the gun this force was supplied by the 
gunpowder. The first hand-pieces — as the lighter 
guns w^ere called — were extremely clumsy (Fig. 
lo). In the early days of the powder gun a soldier 
was lucky if he could load, fire and reload his gun 



rr,.?.,^ 




FIG. 10. — A GUN OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

in -three minutes. But improvements were con- 
stantly made and the loading and firing of the gun 
was made easier and easier. 

146 



THE HOUSE 

MAN has always been a builder. Like squir- 
rels and beavers and birds he provides him- 
self a home as by instinct. The kind of house 
erected by a people in the beginning depended upon 
the surroundings, upon the enemies that prowled 
about, upon the climate, upon the building materials 
close at hand. In a hilly, rocky region primitive 
folk built one kind of house, in a forest they built 
another kind, in a low marshy district they built still 
another kind. In all cases they took the materials 
that were the easiest to get and erected the kind of 
dwelling place that would afford the greatest safety 
and comfort. 

If one could have traveled over the earth during 
the first days of man's history one would doubtless 
have found that dwellings were made of wood, for 
in those days the greater part of the earth was co\- 
ered with forests. To build a home in the forest 
was the simplest of tasks. All that was necessary 
was to fasten together the tops of several saplings, 
interlace the saplings with boughs (Fig. i) and 
cover the frame with skins of animals or thatch it 
with leaves and grass. A cone-shaped structure of 
this pattern, a tent, or hut, or wigwam, was the first 

147 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 







WW 



FIG. I.^ BUILDING A HOUSE WITH WOOD. 



148 



THE HOUSE 

house of all primitive people who lived where there 
was plenty of wood. 

In many regions, especially in parts of northwest- 
ern Europe, the wigwam or hut was not always the 
most suitable dwelling place for early man. In 
hilly and mountainous districts and along streams 
where shores were overhung by rocks or pierced by 
caverns the first inhabitants found that a hollow in 




FIG. 2. — A CAVE-DWELLING. 



the earth w^as the best kind of house. Sometimes 
the house of the cave-dwellers was made by Nature 
(Fig. 2) ; sometimes it was an artificial living-place 
dug in the side of a hill or mountain. The cave was 
truly a rude and gloomy home, yet there was a time 
when large numbers of the human race lived in caves. 
The Zuni Indians of Arizona in seeking a refuge 
from their enemies built their homes far up in steep 

149 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




FIG. 3. — LAKE-DWELLINGS, RESTORED. 

(From Troyon.) 



cliffs where it was almost impossible for a stranger 
to go. 

Coming down from the highlands to the lowlands 
where there were swamps and marshes or where in- 
land lakes were numerous, we find that the first 
houses were built upon piles driven in the water or 

in the mud 

(Fig. 3 ) . 
These 1 a k e - 

dwellings, as 
houses of this 
kind were call- 
ed, were gener- 
ally connected 
with the main- 
land by gang- 
ways of wooden piers, although sometimes they 
could be approached only by boat. In the floors 
of some of these curious dwellings were trap- 
doors through which baskets could be lowered 
for catching fish in the lake below. The chil- 
dren of the lake-dwellers were tethered by the 
feet to keep them from falling into the water. 
The beautiful city of Venice in its infancy was a 
community of lake-dwellers. The rough canoe 
of the lake-dwelling time has developed into the 
graceful gondola, and the rude wooden pier has 
grown to be the magnificent Rialto. 

In many regions the most convenient building 
material is stone and all over the earth there are 

150 



THE HOUSE 

proofs to show that building with stone began at 
a very early date. The stones in the earliest stone 
structures w^ere rough and unhewn and w^ere laid 
without mortar or cement (Fig. 4) yet they were 
sometimes fitted together with such nicety that a thin 
knife blade could not be passed between them. Re- 







FTG. 4. — A PRIMITIVE STONE HOUSE. 

mains of stone houses built many thousands of years 
ago may be seen in Peru, Mexico, Italy, and Greece. 
These primitive dwellings were humble and simple, 
but they were made of good material and they were 
well built. They have weathered the storms of 
ages and they have remained standing while later 
and more pretentious buildings have crumbled and 
disappeared. 

151 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

The illustrations of early building which have 
been given will make plain the truth that the people 
of a particular country have taken the materials 
nearest at hand and have constructed their homes 
according to their particular needs. Now since the 
beginnings of house building have been different in 
different parts of the earth, the story of the house 
will not be the same in all countries. In China and 
Japan, where the light bamboo has always flourished 
and has always been used in building, the house has 
had one development; in countries where granite 
and marble and heavy timber abound it has had an- 
other and an entirely different development. What 
then is the story of the house as we see it in our 
country? Can this story be told? As one passes 
through an American city looking at the public build- 
ings and churches and stores and dwellings can one 
go back to the beginning and trace step by step the 
growth of the house and tell how these came to be 
what they are? Let us see if this cannot be done. 

Our story takes us back many thousands of years 
to Egypt, the cradle of civilization. From Egypt 
it will take us to Greece, thence to Rome, thence to 
the countries of Northern Europe, thence to Amer- 
ica. What kind of houses did the Egyptians first 
build? They built as simple a structure as can be 
imagined; they erected four walls and over these 
they placed a flat roof (Fig. 5). The roof was 
made flat because in Egypt there is scarcely any 
rain and there was no need for a roof with a slant. 

152 



IHE HOUSE 




FIG. 5. — AN EGYPTIAN HOUSE. 




FIG. 6.— AN A.>^ii..\r HEBREW i/.. 1.LLING. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

In all those countries where rain seldom falls, or 
never falls, the flat roof is the natural roof (Fig. 6). 



FIG. 7. — INTERIOR OF AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN 
PALACE. 

Although their buildings were simple in construc- 
tion the Egyptians left behind them most remark- 
able specimens of the builder's art. Their pyra- 

154 



THE HOUSE 

mids and monuments and sphinxes and palaces have 
always been foremost among the great wonders of 
the w^orld. Figure 7 shows the interior of an 
ancient Egyptian palace. This palace had only an 
awning for a roof. That was all that was neces- 
sary to keep out the rays of the sun. Notice the 
lofty pillars or columns of this building. You see 
they are adorned above or below^ with the figure of 
the lotus, the national flower of the Egyptians. 
The column, as we shall see, plays an important part 
in the history of the house and it was ancient Egypt 
that gave the world its first lessons in the art of mak- 
ing columns. 

From Egypt w^e pass over '* the sea " to Greece. 
The Greeks borrowed ideas wherever they could 
and in the matter of architecture they borrowed 
heavily from Egypt. But they did not borrow the 
flat roof of the Egyptians. In Greece there was 
some rainfall and this fact had to be taken into ac- 
count when building a house; the roof had to slant 
so that the rain could run off. Now the Greeks 
taught the world the best way to make a slanting 
roof. They made the roof to slant in two direc- 
tions from a central ridge (Fig. 8) instead of hav- 
ing the entire roof to slant in one direction like an 
ugly shed. The slant w^as gentle because there was 
no snow to be carried off. The roof of two slants 
formed a gable. The Greeks, then, were the in- 
ventors of the gable. The column they borrowed 
from Egypt. But whenever the Greeks borrowed 

^55 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

an invention or an idea they nearly always im- 
proved upon it. Instead of slavishly imitating the 
Egyptian columns they tried to make better ones 
and they were so successful that they soon became 
the teachers of the world in column making. 

The oldest and strongest of the Greek columns 



S!* 







^^i^fe^^^ 






FIG. 8. — A GREEK DWELLING. 



belong to what is known as the Doric order (Fig. 
9), a name given to them because they were first 
made by the Dorians, the original Greek dwellers 
in Europe. Aside from the flutes or channels which 
ran throughout its length the Doric column was 
perfectly plain. In the older Doric columns even 

156 



THE HOUSE 



the flutes are absent. Its capital or top, was with- 
out ornament. Later the graceful and elegant 



VLIXLLL. 

















' 


■ 




«^-^-- 


- 




^Sr *-^ 



^ 




■^'■^r fir * i 




\ X I ){ I A \- 



FIG. 9. — THE THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS. 

Ionic pillar (Fig. 9) came into fashion. We can 
always distinguish an Ionic column by the volute or 
scroll at its capital. The latest of the Greek 
columns was the Corinthian (Fig. 9), the lightest, 
the most slender and the most richly decorated of 
all. A cluster of acanthus leaves at its capital is 
the most prominent ornament of the Corinthian 
column. The Greeks carried the art of column 
making to such perfection that even to this day we 
imitate their patterns. A column in a modern 
building is almost certain to be a Greek column. It 

157 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

IS worth one's while, therefore, to be able to tell 
one Greek column from another. One can do this 
by remembering ( i ) that the Doric column is per- 
fectly plain and has no capital; (2) that the Ionic 
column has a scroll at the capital; (3) that the 
capital of the Corinthian column is adorned with a 
cluster of acanthus leaves. 




FIG. 10. — AN OLD ROMAN ARCH. 



Our story now takes us to Italy. Greece fell be- 
fore the power of Rome 146 B.C., but before she fell 
she had taught her conquerors a great deal about 
architecture. Indeed the Romans took up the art 
of building where the Greeks left it. They needed 
the Greek gable for they had rains, and the Greek 
column recommended itself to them on account of 
its beauty. They used the best features of Grecian 

158 



THE HOUSE 

architecture and added a feature that was largely 
their own. This w^as the arch. The Greeks, like 
the Egyptians before them, bridged over the open- 
ings of doors and windows and the spaces between 
columns by means of straight wooden beams or 
long blocks of stone. The Romans bridged over 
these spaces with the arch (Fig. lo). If you will 
study the arch you will see that it is a curved struc- 
ture which is supported by its own curve. You will 
also see that it is a structure of great strength. The 
greater the weight placed upon it, providing its 
bases are supported, the stronger it gets. In teach- 
ing the w^orld how to make arches Rome added to 
the house an element of great strength and beauty. 
With the arch came the tall building. In Greece a 
house was never more than two stories high. In 
Rome arch rose upon arch (Fig. ii); the dome 
which is itself a kind of arch appeared and palaces 
were piled story upon story until they seemed to 
reach the skies. 

From Italy w^e pass to northern Europe. The 
power of Rome fell 476 A.D., but before that date 
the greater part of Europe had been Romanized, 
and the Roman way of building with column and 
arch and dome had been learned in France and Ger- 
many and England. But the climate of those 
countries was different from that of Italy and a 
slight change in the Roman way of building was 
necessary. In the northern countries there were 
heavy rains and snows and a roof with a gentle 

159 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

slope was not suitable for carrying off large quanti- 
ties of water and snow. A gable (Fig. 12) with a 
sharp slant was necessary. Hence throughout north- 




FIG. II. — INTERIOR OF A ROMAN CLUB HOUSE. 

ern Europe the roofs were built much steeper than 
they were in Italy and Greece, although in other 
respects the northern houses resembled more or less 
closely those of the older southern countries. 

160 



THE HOUSE 

The pointed roof which was made necessary by 
the climate of the north prepared the way for a new 
style of building, the pointed or Gothic style. This 
style began to appear in the twelfth century and by 
the end of the thirteenth century — that remarkable 



FIG. 12. — A DWELLING IN NORTHERN EUROPE. 

century again — the buildings of all northern 
Europe were Gothic. The new style began with a 
change in the arch. The Roman arch was a semi- 
circle and was therefore described from one center. 
The Gothic arch was formed by describing it from 
two centers instead of one and was therefore a 
• i6i 






STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

pointed arch. As the pointed arch grew in favor 
it became the fashion to shape other parts of the 
building into points wherever it was possible to do 
this. The rounding dome became a spire '' point- 
ing heavenward"; the w^indows and doors w^ere 

pointed and so 
were the orna- 
ments and dec- 
orations. For 
several centuries 
buildings fairly 
bristled with 
p o i n t s (Fig. 
13) . The finest 
example of 
Gothic architec- 
ture is the glori- 
ous cathedral at 
Cologne. 

During the 
thousand years 
of the Dark 
Ages (476- 
1453) the 
glories of the 
civilization of 
ancient Greece 
FIG. 13. — POINTED STYLE. ^^^ Komc fadcd 

Typical scheme of a fully developed French almost COmplete- 
cathedral of the 13th century. (From Viol- 1 r 1 

let-le-Duc's '' Diet, de rArchitecture.") ^Y ^^^m human 

162 




wJMiWlWm 





THE HOUSE 

vision. Events of the sixteenth century brought 
those glories again into view and Europe was 
dazzled by them. Men everywhere became dis- 
satisfied with the things around them. They longed 
for ancient things. They read ancient authors, they 
imitated ancient artists, they imbibed the wisdom of 
ancient teachers. This was the period of the Re- 
naissance, the time when the world was born anew — 
as it pleased men to think and say. The world of 
the present died and the old world of Greece and 
Rome was brought to life. Of course in the new 
order of things architecture underwent a change. 
// was born again; it experienced a renaissance. 
The pointed style grew less pleasing to the builder's 
eye, and wherever he could he placed in his building 
something that was Greek or Roman, here an 
arched doorway, there a Greek column. There 
resulted from these changes a style that was neither 
Gothic, Grecian nor Roman, but a mixture of all 
these. This mixed style was named after the 
period in which it arose. When you see a building 
that strongly resembles the buildings of ancient 
Greece and Rome and at the same time has features 
which belong to other styles you may safely say that 
the building belongs to the renaissance style. (Fig. 
14.) The most noble and beautiful examples of 
renaissance architecture are the church of St. Peter's 
at Rome and the church of St. Paul at London. 

We now pass over to America. About the time 
the old .world was born anew the new world was 

163 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

found. The houses of the first settlers in America 
were of course rude and ugly but as the colonies 
grew in population and wealth more expensive and 
beautiful houses were built. As we should expect, 




FIG. 14. — A RENAISSANCE DWELLING. 

the colonists built their best houses in the style that 
was then in fashion in the old world and that was 
the renaissance style. They did not, however, copy 
the old world architecture outright. They had dif- 

164 



THE HOUSE 

ferent materials, a different climate and a different 
class of workmen and they had to build according 
to these chanf2;ed conditions. The result was a style 
of building that has been called colonial (Fig. 15). 



FIG. 15. — A COLONIAL MANSION. 

The Cliveden Chew Mansion, where the Battle of German- 
town was fought. 



'&' 



Colonial architecture was simply American renais- 
sance. And that is what it is to-day. To say that 
a house is in the colonial style is to say that it repre- 
sents a certain architect's ideas as to w^hat is best and 
most beautiful In all styles. 

The story of the house really ends with the period 
of the renaissance. Since the sixteenth century 
nothing really new^ in architecture has been dis- 
covered and men have been wedded to no particular 
style. When we w^ant to build a house wx choose 

165 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

from all the styles and build according to our tastes. 
Our story of the house, however, will not be complete 
without a brief account of what has been called ele- 
vator architecture. The high price of land in large 




(Copyright 191 1 b^ Underwood & Underwood, ]N. Y.) 
FIG. 16. — ELEVATOR ARCHITECTURE. 

The tower-like structure in the distance is a building more than 
forty stories in height. 

cities makes it necessary to run buildings up to a con- 
siderable height if they are to be profitable. Now if 
a building is more than five stories high it must have 
an elevator, or lift, and if an elevator is to be put 
in, the building might as w^ell be run up nine or ten 
stories. American business men learned this thirty 

166. 



THE HOUSE 

or forty years ago and began to build high, and they 
have been building higher and higher ev^er since. 
There are tall buildings in other countries but the 
" sky-scraper " of twenty-five and thirty stories Is 
found only in the United States (Fig. i6). 

Thus we may see In the house of to-day a long 
and unbroken story. Where the roof is flat it Is 
Egyptian; where It slants gently In tw^o directions 
it Is Greek; where It is steep or sharply pointed It is 
Gothic. The columns are Greek, the rounded arches 
are Roman. The whole Is the result of the thou- 
sands of years of effort which man has given to the 
task of providing for himself a safe, convenient 
and beautiful home. 



167 



THE CARRIAGE 

WE are very proud In our day of our means of 
transportation. If one wishes to send a 
present to a friend a thousand miles away a few 
cents spent In postage will take the article to Its 
destination. If for the sake of higher prices a fruit 
grower wishes to sell his crops In a distant city, the 
railroad people will haul It for him at a very smul! 
cost. If you wish to visit a friend In town several 
blocks aw^ay, there is the electric car ready to take 
you for a nickel. If your friend Is several hundred 
miles away, the steam car w^IU take you in a few 
hours at a cost of not more than two or three cents 
a mile. I am living in the country sixteen miles 
from the city in which my work lies, and for nine 
cents I am carried to the place of my business In less 
than half-an-hour. What has been the history of 
the inventions which make transportation so com- 
fortable, rapid and cheap? Our subject divides 
itself Into two parts, transportation on land and 
transportation on w^ater or the story of the Carriage 
and the story of the Boat. We will have the story 
of the carriage first. 

Man's only carriage at first w^as of course his own 
feet. When he wanted to go to any place he had to 

i68 



THE CARRIAGE 



take '' Walker's hack/' if a playful expression may 
be pardoned. As a traveler on foot, man soon sur- 
passed all other animals. He could walk down the 
deer and wear out the horse. When it came to 
carrying things from place to place, in the begin- 
ning he had to rely upon his own limbs and muscles. 
It was not long, however, before he learned that 
there were good ways and bad ways of carrying 
things, and he soon set about finding 
the best way. We may believe that 
he began by making a snug bundle 
and carrying it on his shoulder. 
Then he found that he could 
carry a heavier burden upon 
his back, and he invented a ^ 
pack or frame on which he 
could carry things on his back |i 
(Fig. i) after the manner of p 
one of our modern pack 
peddlers. 

In the course of time man 
tamed one or more of the wild 
beasts which roamed near him. 
Then the burden was 
shifted from the back 
of a man to the back 
of a beast. The first 
beast of burden in 
South America was '''"'- '■-^' "^^^'^'^^ ^^'^^^^ ^^''^^^- 

I ,. . -r ,. . (Troni a Model in National M li- 

the llama; m India it scum.) 

169 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



was the elephant; in 
Arabia it was the camel 
(Fig. 2). In Europe 
and in parts of Asia and 
in Egypt the horse first 
became man's burden 
bearer and the nations 
which had the services 
of this swift and strong 
animal outstripped the 
other nations of the 
world. " Which is the 
most useful of ani- 
mals? '' asked one Egyptian god of another. '^ The 
horse/' was the reply, " because the horse enables a 
man to overtake and slay his enemy." 

It is often easier to drag a thing along than it is 
to carry it. This fact led to the invention of what 
we may call the first and simplest form of carriage. 




FIG. 2. 



A SHIP OF THE DESERT. 



i^ 




FIG. 3. — A CART WITHOUT WHEELS. 

(From a Model in the National Museum.) 
170 



THE CARRIAGE 

This was the drag or travail (tra-vay^), a cart with- 
out wheels (Fig. 3). Two long saplings were fas- 
tened at the large end to the strap across the horse's 
breast and the small end upon Avhich the burden was 
placed dragged upon the ground. Mr. Arthur 
Mitchell in his delightful book, " The Past in the 
Present/' tells us that he saw carts of this kind in 
actual use in the highlands of Scotland as late as 
1864! An improv^ement upon the travail was the 
sledge made of the forked limb of a tree (Fig. 4). 
This primitive sledge was really a travail consisting 
of one piece 




FIG. 4. — A PRIMITIVE SLEDGE. 

(From a ^Nlodel in National ^Inseiim.) 

In many cases it is easier to roll a thing than it is 
to drag it. This fact led to another step in the 
development of the carriage; it led from the cart 
without wheels to a cart wMth a wheel — a most im- 
portant step in the history of inventions. The first 
wheeled cart was simply a log from each end of 
which projected an axle (Fig. 5). The axle fitted 
in the holes of a frame upon which the body of the 
cart was placed and to which the horse or the ox was 
attached. As the cart moved along, wheel (log and 
axle) turned together. The very ancient method 
of moving a load by rolling it along was in use in 
the United States not so very long ago. As late 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

as i860 in some of the southern States hogsheads 
of tobacco (Fig. 6) were rolled over country roads 
in the manner just described and as late as 1880 the 
fishermen of Nantucket used as a fish cart a vehicle 




FIG. 5.— THE FIRST CART. FIG. 6.— HAULING TOBACCO. 

(From a Alodel in National Museum.) 

that had only a barrel for its wheel. (Fig. 7.) 
The common wheel-barrow and the one-wheeled 
carts which are still used in China and Japan had 
their origin in the rolling log. 




FIG. 7. — A NANTUCKET FISH CART. 

(From a Model in the National Museum.) 



We are told by some writers that the rolling log 
(the one-wheeled cart) was followed by the two- 
wheeled cart, on which the wheels were the ends of a 
log and the axle was the middle portion of the log 

172 



THE CARRIAGE 




FIG. 8. — A CART WITH WHEELS 
AND AXLE IN ONE PIECE. 



hewn down to a proper 

size (Fig. 8). Here 

wheels and axle turned 

together precisely like a 

modern car w^heel. This 

makes a very pretty 

story but I am afraid 

the solid two-wheeled 

affair represented in 

Figure 8 is only imaginary, and that in a true 

account of the development of the cart it has 

no place. The true beginning of the two-wheeled 

cart may be learned from Figure 9. Here the 

wheels are two very short logs through the center 

of which are holes in which the round ends (axles) 

of a piece of timber (the axle-tree) fit. When the 

cart moves, the wheels turn upon the axle. The one- 




flG. 9. — CART WITH A SOLID WHEEL. 



173 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

wheeled cart had at first one log turning ztith the 
axle; the two-wheeled cart at first had as its wheels 
two very short logs turning on the axles. 

The first two-wheeled carts were a great improve- 
ment upon the single rolling log, yet they were ex- 
ceedingly heavy and clumsy. The trouble was with 
the wheel. This was very thick and with the ex- 
ception of the hole in which the axle went it was 







~-.i 



FIG. 10. — CART WITH WHEEL PARTLY SOLID. 

(From a Model in the National Museum.) 

entirely solid. Wheelwrights at a very early date 
saw that the problem was to make the wheel light 
and at the same time to keep it strong. Little by lit- 
tle this problem was solved. At first crescent- 
shaped holes were made in the wheel (Fig. lo). 
This made the wheel lighter, but did not weaken it. 
In its next form the wheel was even less solid than 

174 



c- 



THE CARRIAGE 

before. Tt now consisted of four curved pieces of 
wood (Fig. ii) held together by four spokes. In 
this wheel there was a hub, but the spokes w^ere not 




FIG. IT. — WHEELS WITH SPOKES. 

(From National Museum.) 



inserted in it; they were fastened about it. In the 
Egyptian chariot (Fig. 12) we find the wheel in the 




FIG. 12. — AX ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CHARIOT SHOWING HUB, SPOKES, 

FELLY AND RIB. 

(From National Museum.) 

last stage of its interesting and remarkable develop- 
ment. Here the spokes, six in number, are in- 
serted in the hub from which they radiate to the six 

^75 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

pieces of the felly or inner rim. Around the felly 
is the outer rim or tire made of wood and fastened 
to the felly with thongs. The wheel of to-day has 




FIG. 13. — ^ WONDERFUL ONE HOSS SIIAY. 

(From National Museum.) 

more iron in it, and has more spokes and is lighter 
and stronger than the old Egyptian wheel, yet in its 
main features it is made like it. 

A light running two-wheeled carriage was used 
by all the civilized nations of the ancient world. 
Three thousand years ago in the great and wicked 
city of Nineveh chariots raced up and down the 
paved streets " jostling against one another in the 
broad ways, with the crack of the whip, the rattle of 
the wheel and the prancing of horses." The 
chariot played an important part in the life of the 
Greeks and Romans, in their racing contests and In 

176 



THE CARRIAGE 

their wars, and throughout the Middle Ages it was 
the only vehicle in general use in Europe. As time 
passed it was of course made lighter and stronger 
and better. The doctor's gig so charmingly de- 
scribed by Holmes in his '' Wonderful One Hoss 
Shay " may be taken as an illustration of the full 
development of the two-wheeled carriage (Fig. 13). 
Bring the hind part of one Egyptian chariot op- 




FIG. 14. — AN ANCIENT ROMAN CHARIOT. 



posite to the hind part of another, lash the two 
chariots together, remove the tongue of one of the 
chariots and you have made a chariot of four wheels 
or a coach. The form of the most ancient of four- 
wheeled carriages leads to the belief that the coach 
was first made by joining together two two-wheeled 
chariots in the way just described. The ancient 
Egyptians had their four-wheeled chariots but only 
their gods and their kings had the privilege of riding 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

in them. For centuries none but the great and the 
powerful rode in coaches. The Roman chariot (Fig. 
14), bad imitations of which we see nowadays in 
circus processions, was used only in the splendid 
triumphal processions which entered Rome after a 
great victory. In the Middle Ages we get a glimpse 
of a four-wheeled carriage now and then, but usually 
the king or a queen is lounging in it (Fig. 15). 




FIG. 15. — A COACH OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



The coach could not be^ generally used in Europe 
in medieval times because the roads were so bad. 
The excellent roads made by the Romans had not 
been kept in good condition. Traveling had to be 
done either on horseback or in the two-wheeled car- 
riage. In 1550 there were but three coaches in 
Paris and in London there was but one. In 1564, 
however, we find Queen Elizabeth riding in a coach 
(Fig. 16) on her way to see her lover, Lord 
Leicester. Insert more spokes and lighter ones in 

178 



THE CARRIAGE 




FIG. i6. — QUEEN Elizabeth's coach. 

the wheels of this coach of the queen's, put on rub- 
ber tires and mount the body on elliptical springs ^ 
and we will have the coach of to-day. 

1 About the year 1700 elliptical springs were invented, but they 
did not find their way into general use until more than a hun- 
dred years later. 



17-) 



THE CARRIAGE 

Continued 

IN the last chapter the story of the Carriage was 
brought up to the reign of Queen EHzabeth of 
England. In the century following Elizabeth's 
reign a new and most remarkable step in the develop- 
ment of the carriage was taken. You remember 
that in the seventeenth century there was a great deal 
of experimenting with steam (p. 58). Among other 
experiments was one made by Sir Isaac Newton. 
This great philosopher tried in 1680 to make a 

steam-carriage, or lo- 
^"' ^ comotive^ as we call it. 

^ ; j -^r — "^^ Figure i shows the prin- 

ciple upon which he 
X tried to make his car- 



K 



1:71 X rK7Kr 



FIG. I. — NEWTON S STEAM CAR- 



jCl^ riage work. The steam 

was to react against the 

RIAGE, 1680. ^^^' ^s 1" ^he case of 

Hero's engine (p. 56) 
and thus push the carriage along. Newton's experi- 
ment was not satisfactory but the idea of a steam-car- 
riage was now in men's heads and the hope of making 
one continued to be cherished. In 1769 Cugnot, a 

180 



THE CARRIAGE 

French army officer, invented a steam-carriage of 
three wheels (Fig. 2) but it was a very poor one. 
It traveled only three or four miles an 
hour, it could carry but three persons, and it had 
to stop every ten minutes to get up steam. Cugnot, 
however, deserves to be ranked among the great in- 
ventors for he showed that a steam-engine could be 




FIG. 2. — CUGXOT's steam CARRIAGE, 1 769. 

attached to a carriage and could push it along. In 
other words he showed that steam could be used for 
transportation as well as for working pumps and 
turning the wheels of factories. And that was just 
what was needed most in the latter part of the eight- 
eenth century. Man needed assistance in traveling; 
he especially needed help in carrying things from 

181 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

place to place. The steam-engine was keeping the 
mines dry and making it possible to mine great 
quantities of coal and was turning the wheels of 
great factories where the spinning-jenny and the 
new power loom (p. 119) were consuming enor- 
mous quantities of cotton and wool. Now if the 
steam-engine could also be made to carry the coal 
and cotton and wool to the factory, and the man- 
ufactured products from the factory to the market, 
the industrial revolution w-ould be complete in- 
deed. 

Inventors everywhere put their wits together to 
construct an engine that would draw^ a load. The 
great Watt tried to make one, but having failed, he 
came to the conclusion that the steam-engine could 
do good work only when standing still. Among 
those w^ho entered the contest was Richard Trevi- 
thick, a Cornish miner, born in 1771. Trevithick 
w^hen a lad at school was able to work six examples 
in arithmetic while his teacher worked one. He 
proved to be as quick in mechanics as he was in 
mathematics. He began his experiments w^ith 
steam when a mere boy, and as early as 1796 he 
had built a steam-locomotive which would run on 
a table. By 1801 he had constructed a steam-car- 
riage (Fig. 7). Three years later (1804) Trevi- 
thick exhibited a locomotive which carried ten tons 
of iron, seventy men, and five Vv^agons a distance of 
nine and one-half miles at the rate of five miles an 
hour. This w^as the first steam carriage that 

182 



THE CARRIAGE 

actually performed useful work. I'he honor of in- 
venting the first successful locomoti\ e, therefore, be- 
longs to Richard Trevithick, although he never re- 
ceived the honor that was due him. 

The honor wxnt to George Stephenson, of Wylam, 
near Newcastle, England. Stephenson's parents 
were so poor that they could not afford to send him 
to school long enough for him to learn to read and 
write. In his eighteenth year, however, he attended 
a night school and learned something of the common 
branches. In his childhood Stephenson lived among 
steam-engines. He began as an engine boy in a col- 
liery and was soon promoted to the position of fire- 
man. At an early age he was trying to build the 
locomotive that the world needed so badly, one that 
would do good work at a small cost. Trevithick's 
locomotive was too expensive. Stephenson wanted 
a locomotive that would pay its owner a profit. At 
the age of thirty-three he had solved his problem. 
In 1 8 14 he exhibited a locomotive that would run 
ten or twelve miles an hour anci carry passengers 
and freight cheaper than horses could carry them. 
Eleven years later he w^as operating a railroad be- 
tween Stockton and Darlington, England. The 
steam carriage w^as now a success (Fig. 3). The 
iron horse was soon transporting passengers and 
freight m all the civilized countries of the world 
(Fig. 4). Observe that the first passenger car was 
simply the old coach joined to a locomotive. 

The locomotive worked wonders in travel and in 

183 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

carrying loads, yet men were not satisfied with It. 
We never are satisfied with our means of transpor- 



-^^, 



V 




FIG. 3. — STEVENSON'S LOCOMOTIVE, 1828. 

tation. No matter how comfortably or cheaply or 
fast we may travel we always want something better. 




FIG. 4. — THE " BEST FRIEND." THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE BUILT FOR 
ACTUAL SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the great 
cities of the world were becoming over-crowded. 

184 



THE CARRIAGE 




llilSpipipip1|Jiiri::r;|!l| 



^"^iM.JK- 



bl(,. 



.LL\ K. .\L\. 



The people could not be carried from one part of a 
city to another without great discomfort. I'he 
street cars drawn by horses could not carry the 
crowds and rs::: 
the elevated 
steam cars 
were not satis- 
factory. Wits 
were set to 
work to relieve 
the situation 

and about thirty years ago the electric car (Fig. 5) 
was invented. Without horse or locomotive this 
quick-moving car not only successfully handles 
the crowds which move about the city but it also 
relieves over-crowding by enabhng thousands to reach 
conveniently and cheaply their suburban homes. It 
also does the work of the steam car and carries pas- 
sengers long distances 
from city to city. 

A late development 
in carriage making is 
seen in the automobile. 
As far back as the six- 
teenth century a horse- 
less carriage was invent- 
ed (Fig. 6) and was 
operated on the streets of a German city. But 
here the power was furnished by human muscle. 
The first real automobile (Fig. 7) was invented in 

185 




FIG. 6. — A HORSELESS CiTRRIAGE OF 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

1 80 1, by the man who invented the first successful 
locomotive. Trevithick's road locomotive — for 
that is what an automobile really is — did not work 
well because the roads upon which he tried it were 
in very bad condition. Inventors after Trevithick 
for a long time paid but little attention to the road 
locomotive; they bestowed their best thought upon 





'^'^■^^^'^^^''W "■i^^^'^^^^^^^'^ X "^"^ 'T'^ 



FIG. 7. — THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE. 

the locomotive that was to be run upon rails — the 
railroad locomotive. In recent years, however, they 
have been w^orking on the so-called automobile and 
they have already given us a horseless carriage that 
can run on a railless road at a rate as great as that 
of the fastest railroad locomotives. To what ex- 
tent is this newest of carriages likely to be used? It 

186 



THE CARRIAGE 

Is already driving out the horse. Will it also 
drive out the electric car and the railroad loco- 
motive? Arc wc coming to the time when the rail- 



! If 


'"''-•iim 









FIG. 8. — GOOD-DY TO THE HORSE. 

road will be no more and when all travel and all 
hauling of freight will be done by carriages and 
wagons without horses on roads without rails? The 
answ^ers to these questions can of course only be 
guessed. 

The last and latest form of the carriage Is seen In 
the flying-machuic, the automobile of the air. In all 
ages men have watched w^ith envy the movements of 
birds and have dreamed of flying-machines, but only 
in modern times has man dared to take wrings and 
glide In bird-like fashion through the air. The first 
actual flying by a human being w\as done by a French- 
man named Bresnier, w^ho, in 167^, constructed a 

187 ^ • 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

machine similar to that shown in the right hand pic- 
ture at the top of Figure 9. Bresnier worked his 



^-#^ 
.^f^ 




i^>' 



. ..^ 





FIG. 9. — SOME UNSUCCESSFUL FLYING MACHINES OF A HUNDRED 

YEARS AGO. 

wings with his feet and hands. Once he jumped 
from a second story window and flew over the roof 
of a cottage. From the days of Bresnier on to the 
present time man has taxed his wits to the utmost 
to conquer the air, and in his efforts to do this he 
has invented almost every conceivable kind of ma- 
chine. About the middle of the nineteenth century 

188 



^ THE CARRIAGE 

inventors began to apply steam to the flying-machine, 
and it is said that in 1842 a man named Philips was 
able, by the aid of revoh^ng fans driven by steam, 
to elevate a machine to a considerable distance and 
fly across two fields. In 1896 Professor Langley, 
with a flying-machine driven by a small. steam-engine, 
made three flights of about three-fourths of a mile 
each over the Potomac River, near Washington. 




FIG. 10. 



A SUCCESSFUL FLYING MACHINE OF TO-DAY. 



This was the first time a flying-m.achine was propelled 
a long distance by its own power; it was the first 
aerial automobile. But the aerial steam carriage 
was never a success; the steam engine was too heavy. 
In the early years of the twentieth century inventors 
began to use the light gasoline engine to drive their 
flying-machines and then real progress in the art of 
flying began, and so great has been that progress 
that the automobiles of the air are becoming rivals 
of those on the land. 

189 



THE BOAT 



V/ 



AT first, when a man wanted to cross a deep 
stream, he was compelled to swim across. But 
man at his best is a poor swimmer, and it was not 
long before he invented a better method of traveling 
on water. A log drifting in a stream furnished the 
hint. By resting his body upon the log and plash- 
ing with his hands and feet he found he could move 
along faster and easier. Thus the log was the first 
boat and the human arm was the first oar. Expe- 
rience soon taught our primitive boatman to get on 
top of the log and paddle along, using the limb of 

a tree for an oar 
(Fig. i). But the 
round log would 
turn with the least 
provocation and its 
passenger suffered 
many unceremo- 
nious duckings. So 
the boatman made 
his log flat on top. 
It now floated better and did not turn over so easily. 
Then the log was made hollow, either by burning 
(Fig. 2) , or by means of a cutting instrument. Thus 

JOG 




fe=^f/f<r 



FIG. I. — -THE FIRST BOAT. 



THE BOA I 



U- 




i-lG. 2. — THE INVENTION OF THE CANOE. 




FIG. 3._THE RAFT — SHOWING ALSO EARLY USE OF THE SAIL 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



the canoe was invented. Very often If the nature of 
the tree permitted It, the log was stripped of Its bark, 
and this bark was used as a canoe. 

The canoe was one of the earliest of boats, but 
It Is not In line with the later growth. The ancestry 
of the modern boat begins with the log and Is traced 
through the raft rather than through the canoe. 
By lashing together several logs It was found that 
larger burdens could be carried. Therefore the boat 
of a single log grew Into one of several logs — a 
raft (Fig. 3). By the time man had learned to 
make a raft he had learned something else: 
he had learned to row his boat along by 
pulling at an oar Instead of pushing It along with a 

paddle. But In order to 
row there must be some- 
thing against which the 
oar may rest; so the oar- 
lock (Fig. 4) was invent- 
ed. Rafts were used by 
nearly all the nations of 
antiquity. Herodotus, the 
father of history, tells us 
that they were In use In 
ancient Chaldea. In Figure 3 we have a kind of 
raft that may still be seen on some of the rivers of 
South America. Here a most Important step In 
boat-bullding has been taken. A sail has been 
hoisted and one of the forces of nature has been bid- 
den to assist man In moving his boat along. 

192 




FIG. 4. — A PRIMITIVE OAR 
LOCK. 



THE BOAT 

The raft was bound to dcxclop into the large 
boat. The central log was used as a keel and about 
this was built a boat of the desired shape and size. 
Stout timbers, called ribs, slanted from the keel, and 
on the ribs were fastened planks running length- 
wise with the vessel. To keep out the water the seams 
between the planks were filled with pitch or wax. 

r , ' 

I ' 







FIG. 5. — "thus the raft GREW INTO A LARGE, SrOON-SUAPED 

VESSEL." 



Thus the raft grew into a large spoon-shaped ves- 
sel (Fig. 5). The early boat was usually propelled 
by oars, although a single sail sometimes invoked 
the assistance of the wind. It had no rudder and 
no deck, and if there was an anchor it was only a 
heavy stone. 

In the early history of the boat there was no such 
thing as a rudder. The oarsman had to steer his 
'^ 193 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




craft as best he could. With the appearance of 
larger boats, however, a steersman comes into view. 
He steers by means of a paddle held over the stern 
of the boat. Within historic times, probably about 

the time of Homer (iioo 
B. c), the rudder appears 
as an oar with a broad blade 
protruding through a hole 
in the side of the boat well 
to the stern (Fig. 6). 
Throughout the whole 
period of ancient history 
boats were steered by rud- 
ders of this kind. 

The anchor came later 
than the rudder. Of course 
even in primitive times 
there were methods of securing the vessel to the 
ground under water but they were very crude. Some- 
times a sack of sand was used as an anchor, some- 
times a log of wood covered with lead was thrown 
overboard to hold the boat 
in its place. In Homer's 
time the anchor was a bent 
rod with a single fluke. 
About 600 B. c. Anacharsis, 
one of the seven wise men of Greece, gave a 
practical turn to his wisdom and invented an an- 
chor with two flukes (Fig. 7). The invention re- 

194 



FIG. 6. — THE POSITION OF 
THE RUDDER IN ANCIENT 
TIMES. 




w 4/ 



FIG. 7. — ANCIENT ANCHORS. 



L^ 



THE BOAT 

ceived the name of ** anchor " from the name of the 
inventor. 

It was in the Mediterranean Sea that the boat had 
its most rapid development. As early as we can 
get a glimpse of that wonderful body of water it was 
alive with boats (called galleys) that had well-laid 
keels and lofty sides, and rudders, and sails. The 
greatest of the earlier navigators w^ere the Phoeni- 
cians whose boats had traversed 5,000 years ago the 




FIG. 8. — A ROMAN GALLEY OF ONE TIER OF OARS, IN- 
TRODUCING THE RUDDER. 



whole course of the Mediterranean and had even 
ventured beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. The an- 
cient Greeks also were a great sea-going people, and 
their merchantmen or trading boats visited every part 
of the known world. But it was the Romans who 
at last became masters of the ancient seas. The 
Roman galley, therefore, may be taken as the repre- 
sentative boat of ancient times. What kind of a boat 
was the Roman galley? It was propelled chiefly by 
oars, just as nearly all the boats of antiquity were. 

195 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Occasionally a sail was hoisted when the w^nd was 
favorable but the main reliance was the rower's arm. 
Men had not yet learned to use the sail to the best 
advantage. The older galleys had one row of oars- 
men (Fig. 8), but as the struggle for the mastery 
of the sea became keener the boats were made larger 
and more rowers were necessary. Galleys with two 
and three, and even four rows of oarsmen were built 
by the Roman navy. When there was more than 
one row of oars the rowers sat on benches one 
above another. The oarsmen were slaves or pris- 
oners captured in war, and their life was most 
wretched.^ They were chained to the benches on 
which they sat, and were compelled to row as long as 
a spark of life was left. Sometimes they dipped their 
oars to the music of the flute, but more often it 
was to the crack of the lash. Figure 9 shows us how 
the Roman galley looked when Rome was at the 
height of her power (100 A. D.). Here is a vessel 
about 400 feet long and about 50 feet across its 
deck, a part of the boat, by the by, which was not 
to be seen in the earlier galleys. The boat is a tri- 
reme, that is, it has openings for three tiers of oars, 
and it is propelled by several hundred oarsmen. For 
steering purposes it has four stout paddles, two on 
each side near the stern. Two masts instead of one 
carry the sail which, considering the size of the boat, 
would seem to be insufficient. This galley of the first 

^ A spirited account of life on a Roman galley is found in Wal- 
lace's " Ben Hur." 

196 



THE BOAT 

century of our era represents the full dcxelopniciit of 
the boat in ancient times. 

After the downfall of Rome (476 A. D.) it was a 
long time before there was any real progress in boat- 
making. The glimpses we get now and then of ves- 




■»~-e- iXj 



FIG. 9. — A ROMAN CALLFA' WITH THREE BANKS OF OARS. 

sels in the Middle Ages almost make us feel that 
boat-building w^as going backward rather than for- 
ward. But such was not the case. The ship in 
w^hich William of Normandy sailed (Fig. 10) when 
he crossed over the Channel to give battle to Harold 
(1066 A. D.) was not so impressive as a Roman 
galley, yet it w-as, nevertheless, a better boat. In the 
first place William's boat w^as a better sailer; it relied 
more upon the force of the wind and less upon the 
oar. In the second place, it could be steered better, 
for the rudder had found its way to its proper place 
and was w^orked by a tiller. Finally, the shape of 

197 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



u 




FIG. 10. — THE SHIP IN WHICH WILLIAM THE CON- 
QUEROR CROSSED THE CHANNEL IN I056. 

the Norman boat fitted it for fiercer battles with the 
waves. 

If we should pass from the Enghsh Channel to the 
^-^ Adriatic we should 

find that boat-mak- 
ing had undergone 
the same changes. 
A Mediterranean 
^/. % ^ galley of the four- 

teenth century 
(Fig. ii) shows 
fewer oars and 



^^''^^^^^/ytt?'^'"/ 



FIG. II, 



A MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY OF 
THE I4TH CENTURY. 



198 



THE BOAT 



more sails. Instead 
of three rows of 
oars and two sails 
as on the Roman 
galley, there are 
three sails and one 
row of oars. This 
was the tendency of 
the boat-builder in 
the Middle Ages; 
he crowded on the 
sail and took off the 
rowers. A war- 
boat of the sixteenth 





FIG. 13. — A CHINESE COM- 
PASS. AS THE CART MOVED 
THE , HUMAN FIGURE IN 
FRONT ALWAYS POINTED 
NORTH. 



FIG. 12. — A WAR-BOAT OF THE i6tH 
CENTURY, SHOWING THAT THE LAST 
ROW OF OARS HAD DISAPPEARED. 

century (Fig. 12) shows that 
the last row of oarsmen has 
disappeared. 

About the middle o^ the 
thirteenth century there be- 
gan to appear on the decks 
of vessels almost everywhere 
in Europe, a little instrument 
that is of the greatest im- 
portance in the history of the 
boat. This w^as the mariner^ s 
compass. The use of the 
magnetic needle w^as known 
in China (Fig. 13) a thou- 
sand years before it was 
known to the Europeans, but 
199 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

in this, as in many other instances, the Chinese did not 
profit by their knowledge. Sailors have always sailed 
at night by the North star; but before the use of the 
compass was understood they could little more than 
guess their way when the night was dark and the stars 
could not be seen. With a mariner's needle on board 
they can tell the direction they are going no matter 
how dark the night. We can easily understand that 
sailors prized very highly the discovery of the com- 
pass. With the appearance of this faithful guide 
they became bolder and bolder and were soon ven- 
turing out upon the trackless expanse of the ocean. 
It was the compass that led to the discovery of the 
new world, for without it no sailor could have held 
his course due west long enough to reach the Amer- 
ican coast. 

After men had learned to carry their burdens on 
the broad back of the ocean, boat-building took 
on new life. All the great nations of Europe wanted 
a share in the new world that had just been found; 
but no nation could hope to profit greatly by the dis- 
covery of Columbus if its vessels were not swift and 
strong. So there arose a grim contest for the mastery 
of the Atlantic, just as in ancient times there had been 
a struggle for the mastery of the Mediterranean. 
Spain, France, Portugal, Holland and England all 
joined in the battle. When we see the kind of boats 
she sent out upon the oceans we are not surprised that 
England won. Compare the heavy, angular galley of 
the first century with the graceful ship of the sixteenth 

200 



IHl", BOA'l' 

century and we see at once the progress the boat 
made in the Middle Ages (Fig. 14). 

The log, the raft, the galley, the sailing-ship, these 
were the steps in the dev^elopment of the boat up to 
the end of the seventeenth century. In the eight- 
eenth century another step was taken. You re- 
member that in that century inventors w^ere every- 
where trying to make a steam carriage. They were 




FIG. 14. 



THE C.KEAT llAKKY. 



at the same time trying to make a steam boat. Their 
efforts to use steam to drive boats were rewarded with 
success earlier than were their efforts to use it to draw 
carriages. This was to be expected. Boat-build- 
ing has always moved along faster than carriage- 
building. Men were gliding about in well-built ca- 
noes before they had even the clumsiest of carts. The 
Londoners who gazed with admiration upon the 

201 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Great Harry as it sailed on the Thames, had never 
seen as much as a lumbering coach. And so with 
the steamboat; it had crossed the Atlantic before the 
locomotive could carry passengers from one town to 
the next. 

France, England, Germany and America were all 
eager to have the first steamboat. In this race 
America won, although France and England came out 
with their colors flying. As far back as 1663 the 
Marquis of Worcester, of whom we have heard 
before (p. 59), described a vessel that could be 
moved by steam: *^ It roweth," he said, ^St draw- 
eth, it driveth (if needs be) to pass London bridge 
against the stream at low water." It was one thing, 
however, to describe a steamboat, and quite another 
thing to make one. Worcester's steam-vessel existed 
only in the imagination of the inventor. Denys 
Papin, who did so much for the steam-engine, fitted 
out a boat with revolving paddles which were turned 
by horses. This was nothing new. The ancient 
Roman galley was sometimes propelled by paddle- 
wheels turned by horses or oxen. It is sometimes 
claimed that Papin turned the paddle-wheels of 
his boat by means of steam, but there are no grounds 
for the claim. If France wants the honor of having 
made the first steamboat she would do better to 
turn from Papin and look to Marquis of Jouffroy of 
Lyons. This nobleman, it is claimed, built a steam- 
boat (Fig. 15) which made a successful trip on the 
river Soane, in the year 1783, before a multitude of 

202 



THE BOAT 

witnesses. This claim may or may not be just. It 
may be as the French say: the boat after the trial 
trip may have been taken to pieces, the model may 
have been lost and the French Revolution may have 
swallowed up those who witnessed the trip. 




FIG. 15. — THE MARQUIS OF JOUFFROY's STEAMBOAT, I783. 



About the time the Frenchman is said to have 
been experimenting with his steamboat on the 
Soane similar experiments were being tried in many 
other places. In the latter part of the eighteenth 
century the idea of a steam-propelled boat seemed to 
be in the air. An English poet of the time was bold 
enough to prophesy : 

203 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Soon shall tliy arm, Unconquered Steam, afar 
Drag the slow barge and draw the rapid car, 
Or on wide, waving wings, expanded bear 
The flying chariot through the fields of air. 

For the most part the prophesy has been fulfilled, 
although the steam flying-machine is not yet an ac- 
complished fact. Among those who helped to make 
good the words of the poet was James Rumsey, of 
Sheppardtown, Virginia. Rumsey in 1786 propelled, 
by means of steam, a boat on the Potomac River 
moving at the rate of five miles an hour. It is almost 
certain that this was the first boat ever drawn by 
steam. How did Rumsey drive his boat? A piston 
in a cylinder was worked by a steam-engine. When 
the piston was raised it brought water in and when it 
was pushed down it forced the water out behind and 
the reaction of the jet pushed the boat along. A 
remarkable revival of a very ancient idea ! Just as 
Hero turned his globe by reaction, just as Newton 
pushed the first steam carriage along by reaction, so 
Rumsey pushed the first steamboat along by reaction. 
If you will look on a map of the United States and 
observe the vast network of waterways which come 
to the different parts of the country you will under- 
stand how important a subject steam navigation must 
have been to the people of America in the latter part 
of the eighteenth century. Here w^as a tract of land 
containing millions upon millions of fertile acres, but 
it lacked good roads, and without roads it could not 

204 



THE BOAT 

be developed. It was, however, traversed by thou- 
sands of miles of excellent water-roads and it was 
plain that if steamboats could be put upon these riv- 
ers the gain would be incalculable. The most press- 
ing need of the time, therefore, was a steamboat. 
No one saw this more clearly than John Fitch. This 
talented but eccentric man served his country in the 
Revolution, and after the war was over roamed 
hither and thither for several years as a soldier of 
fortune. About 1785 he went to Philadelphia with 
a plan for a steamboat. He organized a com- 
pany, and secured enough money to enable him to 
carry out his plans. His boat was ready by August, 
1787, and he made his trial trip in Philadelphia when 
the Constitutional Convention was in session. Many 
of the members of that distinguished body w^ent down 
to the river to see how the new invention worked. It 
worked fairly well, but did not arouse much en- 
thusiasm. Its speed w^as only three or four miles 
an hour and its movement w^as exceedingly awkward. 
It was pushed along by two sets of oars, one set en- 
tering into the water as the other came out. The 
steam rowboat of 1787 proved at least to be a fail- 
ure, and was abandoned as worthless. Fitch aftcr- 
w^ard built another steamboat, but it also met with 
accident and came to naught. Heartbroken by his 
many failures the poor fellow at last ended his life 
with his own hand. He deserved a better fate, for 
his experiments taught the world a great deal about 
the steamboat. 

203 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

While Rumsey and Fitch were making their boats 
in America, European inventors were not idle. On 
the contrary they were so very active that they al- 
most won the honor of making the first successful 
boat. One of these, William Symington, an English- 
man, built a boat that may, with much justice, be 
called the first practical steamboat that was ever 
launched. This was the Charlotte Diindas (Fig. 

1 6) which made its 
trial trip on the 
Clyde and Firth 
>^^^. Canal in 1802. On 

the Charlotte was a 
paddle-wheel i n - 
stead of Fitch's two 

FIG. 16.- THE CH^^TE DUNDAS, gCtS of paddlcS. Thc 

wheel was placed at 
the rear of the boat and was drawn by means 
of a crank which was turned by a rod attached 
to the piston-rod. Watt and his co-workers, a few 
years before, had shown how the steam-engine could 
be made to turn a wheel and Symington in the con- 
struction of his boat put this principle to good use. 
The Charlotte did so well that the Duke of Bridge- 
water ordered eight more boats like her to be built 
for use on the canal. Symington was elated for he 
thought he had at last made a successful steamboat, 
that is, a steamboat that would give to its owner a 
profit; but he was doomed to disappointment for the 
owners of the canal refused to allow steamboats to be 

206 



THE BOAT 



employed upon it, and worse than this the duke soon 
died and the inventor's financial support was gone. 
The Charlotte was taken off the canal and laid in a 
creek where she fell to pieces. The really successful 
steamboat had not yet been built. 

It was to be built first where it was needed most, 
and that was in America. It was built by a man who 
kept his eyes on Rumsey and Fitch and Symington, 
and made the best of what he saw. As all the world 
knows, this was Robert Fulton. In August of 1807 
Fulton's steam- 
boat the Cler- 
mont (Fig. 
17) made a 
trip on the 
Hudson River 
from New 
York to Al- 
bany, a distance of 150 miles, in thirty-two hours, and 
returned in thirty hours. Fulton advertised for pas- 
sengers, and his boat was soon crowded. '' The 
Clermont/' says an English writer, '' was the steam- 
boat that commenced and continued to run for practi- 
cal purposes, and for the remuneration of her own- 
ers." Here was the boat that was wanted — one 
that was financially profitable. 

The paddle-wheels of the Clermont were on the 
sides of the boat about midship. As the wheel 
turned, about half of it was in the water and about 
half was out. There were engineers, even in Ful- 

207 




FIG. 17. — FULTON S STEAMBOAT, CLERMONT. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

ton's day who did not believe the wheels ought to 
be on the sides of the boat. Look at waterfowl, 
they said, look at the graceful swan; its feet do not 
work at its sides, half under the water and half out. 
Every animal that swims propels itself from behind, 
and its propellers are entirely under the water. So, 
thought these engineers, the paddle-wheel of a boat 
should be placed behind, and should be entirely cov- 
ered by the water. John Stevens, an engineer of 
Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1805 built a steamboat ac- 




ne. 18. — THE BOAT OF STEVENS. 



cording to this notion (Fig. 18). A close inspection 
of the wheel of the boat would show that It is spiral- 
or screw-like in shape. Stevens' boat made a trial 
trip on the Hudson and worked well; but after Ful- 
ton's great success the little steamer with Its spiral- 
shaped wheel In the rear was soon forgotten. The 
Idea of a screw-propeller, however, was not lost. 
It was taken up by John Ericsson, a Swedish en- 
gineer, who, in 1839, built, in an English ship- 
yard for an American captain, the first screw- 

208 



THE BOAT 




209 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

propeller that crossed the Atlantic — the Robert 
F. Stockton. This was the last step in the de- 
velopment of the boat. Since 1839 there has been 
marvelous progress in ship-building, but the progress 
has consisted in improving upon the invention of Er- 
icsson rather than in making new discoveries. With 
the screw-propeller in its present form we may close 
our story of the boat. The homely log propelled by 
rude paddles has become the magnificent floating pal- 
ace. 



210 



THE CLOCK 

TIC-TAC ! tic-tac! go the wheels of time. We 
cannot stop them ; they will not stop them- 
selves.'' Time passing is life passing and the meas- 
urement of time is the measurement of life itself. 
How important then that our chronometers, or time 
measures, be accurate and faithful! It is said that a 
slight error in a general's watch caused the over- 
throw of Napoleon at Waterloo and thus changed the 
history of the world. Because of its great impor- 
tance the measurement of time has always been a 
subject of deep human interest and the story of the 
clock begins with the history of primeval man. 

The larger periods of time are measured by the 
motion of the heavenly bodies. The year and the 
four sea^sons are marked off by the motion of the 
earth in its long journey around the sun; the months 
and the weeks are told by the changing moon; sunrise 
and sunset announce the coming and the going of day. 
The year and the seasons and the day were measured 
for primeval man by the great clock in the heavens, 
but how were smaller periods of time to be measured ? 
How was the passing of fractional parts of a day, an 
hour or a minute or a second to be noted? An egg 
was to be boiled; how could the cook tell when it had 

211 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



been in the water long enough ? A man out hunting 
wished to get back to his family before dark: how 
was he to tell when it was time to start homeward? 

Plainly, the measurement of small portions of 
time was a very practical problem from the be- 
ginning. The first attempt to solve the problem 
consisted in observing shadows cast by the sun. The 
changing shadow of the human form was doubtless 
the first clock. As the shadow grew shorter the ob- 
server knew that noon was approaching; w^hen he 

could reach out one foot 
and step on the shadow of 
his head he knew it was 
time for dinner; when his 
V . shadow began to lengthen 

he knew that evening was 
coming on. Observations 
of this kind led to the 
shadow clock or sun-dial 
(Fig. i). You can make 
one for yourself. On a per- 
fectly level surface exposed 
all day to the sun, place in 
an upright position (Fig. 
i) a stick about three feet long, and trace on 
the surface the shadows as they appear at different 
times of the day. A little study will enable you to 
use the shadows for telling the time. Sun-dials have 
been used from the beginning of time and they have 
not yet passed out of use. They may still be seen in 




FIG. 



I. — A PRIMITIVE 
DIAL. 



SUN- 



212 



THE CLOCK 



a few public places (Fig. 2), but they arc retained 
rather as curiosities than as real timekeepers. For 
the sun-dial is not a good timekeeper for three rea- 
sons : (i) it will not tell the time at night; (2) it 
fails in the daytime when the sun is not shining; (3) 
it can never be used inside of a house. 

The sun-dial can hardly be called an in\'ention; 
it is rather an observation. There were, however, 
inventions for measur- 
ing time in the earliest 
period of man's history. 
Among the oldest of 
these was the fire-clock, 
w^hich measured time by 
the burning away of a 
stick or a candle. The 
Pacific islanders still use 
a clock of this kind. 
'' On the midrib of the 
long palm-leaf they skewer a number of the oily 
nuts of the candle-nut-tree and light the upper one.'' 
As the nuts burn off, one after another, they mark 
the passage of equal portions of time. Here is a 
clock that can be used at night as well as In the day- 
time. In the house as well as out of doors. Mr. 
Walter Hough tells us that Chinese messengers who 
have but a short period to sleep place a lighted 
piece of joss-stick between their toes when they go to 
bed. The burning stick serves both as a timepiece 
and as an alarm-clock. 




FIG. 2. — A MODERN SUN-DIAL. 



213 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Fire-clocks of one kind or another have been used 
among primitive people in nearly all parts of the 
globe, and their use has continued far into civilized 
times. Alfred the Great (900 A. D.) is said to have 
measured time in the following way: ''He pro- 
cured as much wax as weighed seventy-two penny- 
weights, which he commanded to be made into six 
candles, each twelve inches in length with the divi- 
sions of inches distinctly marked upon it. These 
being lighted one after another, regularly burnt four 
hours each, at the rate of an inch for every twenty 
minutes. Thus the six candles lasted twenty-four 
hours." ^ 

We all remember Irving's account of time-measure- 
ment in early New York: '' The first settlers did not 
regulate their time by hours, but pipes, in the same 
manner as they measure distance in Holland at this 
very time; an admirably exact measurement, as the 
pipe in the mouth of a true-born Dutchman is never 
liable to those accidents and irregularities that are 
continually putting our clocks out of order." This, 
of course, is not serious, yet it is an account of a kind 
of fire-clock that has been widely used. Even to-day 
the Koreans reckon time by the number of pipes 
smoked. 

If we could step on board a Malay proa we should 
see floating in a bucket of water a cocoanut shell 
having a small perforation through which the water 
by slow degrees finds its way into the interior. This 

^ Wood, '' Curiosities of Clocks and Watches.'' 

214 



THE CLOCK 

orifice is so perforated that the shell will fill and sink 
in an hour, when the man on watch calls the time and 
sets it to float again. This sinking cocoanut shell, 
the first form of the w^ater-clock, is the clock from 
which has been developed the timepiece of to-day. 
With it, therefore, the story of the clock really be- 
gins. In Northern India the cocoanut shell is re- 
placed by a copper bowl 
(Fig. 3) . At the mo- 
ment the sinking occurs 
the attendant announces 
the hour by striking 
upon the bowl. 

The second step in 
the development of the 
water-clock was made 
in China several thou- 

j T , FIG. 3. — AN EARLY FORM OF THE 

sand years ago. In the water-clock. 

earlier Chinese clock 

the water, instead of finding its way into the vessel 
from the outside, was placed inside and allowed 
to trickle out through a hole in the bottom and 
fall into a vessel below. In the lower vessel was 
a float which rose with the water. To the 
float was attached an indicator w^hich pointed 
out the hours as the water rose. By this ar- 
rangement, w^hen the upper vessel was full, the 
water, by reason of greater pressure, ran out faster 
at first than at any other time. The indicator, there- 
fore, at first rose faster than it ought, and after a 

215 




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



U^ 



while did not rise as fast as it ought to. After 
centuries of experience with the two-vessel arrange- 
ment, a third vessel was brought upon the scene. 
This was placed above the upper vessel, which now 
became the middle vessel. As fast as water flowed 

from the middle 
vessel it was replac- 
ed by a stream flow- 
1 n g from the one 
above it. The depth 
of the water in the 
middle vessel did 
not change, and the 
water flowed into 
the lowest vessel at 
a uniform rate. 
Finally a fourth ves- 
sel was brought into 
use. The Chinese 
water-clock shown 
In (Fig. 4) has been 
running in the city 
of Canton for near-, 
ly six hundred years. 
Every afternoon at five, since 132 1, the lowest jar 
has been emptied into the uppermost one and the 
clock thus wound up for another day. 

To follow the further development of the water- 
clock we must pass from China to Greece. In their 
early history the Greeks had nothing better than the 

216 




FIG. 4. — CHINESE WATER-CLOCK 
CANTON. 



AT 




THE CLOCK 

sun-dial with which to measure time. About the 
middle of the fifth century B. C. there arose at Athens 
a need for a better timepiece. In 
the public assembly the orators were 
consuming too much time, and in 
the courts of law the speeches of 
the lawyers were too long. It was 
a common thing for a lawyer to ^^^ „_^^^ ^^^^^ 
harangue his audience for seven or greek clepsydra. 
eight hours. To save the city from being talked to 
death a time-check of some kind became necessary. 
The sun-dial would not answer, for the sun did not 
always shine, even in sunny Greece; so the idea of 
the water-clock was borrowed. A certain amount 
of water was placed in an amphora (urn), in the 
bottom of w^hich was a small hole through which the 
water might slowly flow (Fig. 5). When the am- 
phora was empty the speaker had to stop talking. 
The Greeks called the water-clock a clepsydra, which 
means '' the w^ater steals away." The orator w^hose 
time was limited by a certain amount of water would 
keep his eye on the clepsydra, just as a speaker in our 
time keeps his eye on the clock, and if he were inter- 
rupted he would shout to the attendant, ^' You there, 
stop the water,'' or would say to the one who inter- 
rupted him, '' Remember, sir, you are in my water.'' 
The story goes that upon one occasion the speaker 
stopped every now^ and then to take a drink; the 
orator's speech, it seems, w^as as dry as his throat, and 
a bystander cried out: '' Drink out of the clepsydra, 

217 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



and then you will give pleasure both to yourself and 
to your audience." 

At first the Greeks used a simple form of the 
clepsydra, but they gradually adopted the improve- 
ments made by the Chinese, and finally added others. 
The great Plato is said to have turned his attention 
to commonplace things long enough to invent a clep- 
sydra that would announce the hour by playing 

the flute. However this may have 
been, there was in use in the 
Greek world, about 300 B. c, a 
clepsydra something like the one 
shown in Fig. 6. This begins to 
look something like a clock. As 
the water drops into the cylinder 
E the float F rises and turns G, 
which carries the hour hand 
around. Inside of the funnel A 
FIG. 6.— AN IMPROVED Jg a couc B which can be raised 

GREEK CLEPSYDRA. 

or lowered by the bar D. In this 
way the dropping of the water is regulated. 
Water runs to the funnel through i/, and when 
the funnel is full the superfluous water runs off 
through the pipe /, and thus the depth of the 
water in the funnel remains the same and the 
pressure does not change. Notice that when the 
hand in this old clock has indicated twelve hours 
it begins to count over again, just as it does on our 
clocks to-day. How easily it would have been to 
have continued the numbers on to twenty-four, as 

218 




THE CLOCK 

they do in Italy, and on the railroads in parts of 
Canada, to-day. 

If we pass from Greece to Rome, our usual route 
when we are tracing a feature of our civilization, we 
find that the Romans were slow to introduce new 
methods of timekeeping. The first public sun-dial 
in Rome was constructed about 200 B. c, an event 
which the poet Plautus bewailed: 

Confound the man who first found out 

How to distinguish hours! Confound tliem, too 

Who in this place set up a sun-dial 

To cut and hack my days so wretchedly 

Into small portions! When I was a boy 

My stomach was my sun-dial, one more sure, 

Truer, and more exact than any of them, 

This dial told me when 'twas the proper time 

To go to dinner. 

The water-clock was brought into Rome a little 
later than the sun-dial, and was used as a time-check 
upon speakers in the law courts, just as it had been 
in Athens. When the Romans first began to use 
the clepsydra it was already a very good clock. 
Whether it received any great improvements at their 
hands is not certain. Improvements must have been 
made somewhere, for early in the Middle Ages we 
find clepsydras in forms more highly developed than 
they were in ancient times. In the ninth century the 
Emperor Charlemagne received as gift from the 
King of Persia a most interesting timepiece which 

219 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 



was worked by water. '' The dial was composed of 
twelv^e small doors which represented the divisions 
of the hours; each door opened at the hour It was 
Intended to represent, and out of It came the same 
number of little balls, which fell, one by one at equal 
distances of time, on a brass drum. It might be 
told by the eye what hour it was by the number of 
doors- that were open; and by the 
ear by the number of balls that fell. 
When It was twelve o'clock, twelve 
horsemen in miniature issued forth 
at the same time, and, marching 
round the dial, shut all the doors.'' 
Less wonderful than the clock of the 
emperor, but more useful as an ob- 
ject of study. Is the medieval clepsy- 
dra shown in Figure 7. This looks 
more than ever like the clock we are 
accustomed to see. It has weights 
as well as wheels. As the float z/ 
rises with the water it allows the 
weight C to descend and turns the 
spindle B on the end of which 
Is the hand which marks the hours. Notice care- 
fully that this is partly a water-clock and partly a 
weight-clock. The weight In Its descent turns the 
spindle; the water regulates the rate at which the 
weight may descend. 

The water-clock just described led easily and di- 
rectly to the weight-clock. Clockmakers In the Mid- 
220 




FIG. 7. — A MEDIE 
VAL CLEPSYDRA. 



THE CLOCK 



die Ages for centuries tried with more or less 
success to make clocks that would run by means of 
weights. In 1370, Henry De Vick, a German, 
succeeded in solving the 
problem. De Vick was 
brought to Paris to make 
a clock for the tower of 
the king's palace, and he 
made one that has be- 
come famous. In a some- 
what improved form it 
can still be seen in Paris 
in the Palais de Justice. 
Let us remove the face of 
this celebrated timepiece 
and take a look at its 
works (Fig. 8). It had 
a striking part, and a 
timekeeping part, each 
distinct from the other. 
The figure shows only the 
timekeeping part. The 
weight (A), of 500 
pounds, is wound up by a 
crank (the key) at P. O is the hour-hand. If J 
IS allowed to descend, you can easily see how the 
whole system of wheels will be moved — and that 
very rapidly. But if something does not prevent, ./ 
will descend faster and faster, the hour-hand will run 
faster and faster and the clock will run down at once. 

221 




FIG. 8. — DE VICK's clock. THE 
FIRST WEIGHT CLOCK. ( 1 370. ) 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

If the clock Is to run at a unifrom rat-e and for any 
length of time, the power of the weight must escape 
gradually. In the clepsydra (Fig. i) the descent of 
the weight was controlled by the size of the stream 
of flowing water. De Vick invented a substitute for 
the stream of flowing water. Fasten your attention 
upon the workings of the saw-toothed wheel // and 
the upright post K^ which moves on the pivots / and 
k^ and you may learn what he did. Fixed to the 
upper part of the post Z is a beam or balance LL, 
at the ends of which are two small weights m and 
m, and projecting from the post in different direc- 
tions are two pallets or lips i and h. Now, as the 
top of the wheel // turns toward you, one of its 
teeth catches the pallet i and turns the post K a part 
of the way round toward you. Just as the tooth 
escapes from i a tooth at the bottom of // (moving 
from you) catches the pallet h and checks the re- 
volving post and turns it from you. Thus as // 
turns, it gives a to-and-fro motion to the post K and, 
consequently, a to-and-fro motion to the balance LL. 
II is called the escapement because the power of the 
descending weight gradually escapes from its teeth. 
In the clepsydra the trickling oi water regulated the 
descent of the weight; in De Vick's clock the trickling 
of power or force from the escapement regulated the 
descent of the weight. The invention of this escape- 
ment is the greatest event in the history of the clock. 
The king was much pleased with De Vick's in- 
vention. He gave the clockmaker three shillings a 

222 




THE CLOCK 

day, and allowed him to sleep in the clock tower; a 
scanty reward indeed for one who had done so much 
for the world, for De Vick's invention led rapidly 
to the excellent timepieces of to-day, to both our 
watches and our clocks. After the appearance of 
the weight-clock, the wMter-clock gradually fell into 
disuse, and all the ingenuity of the clockmaker w^as 
bestowed upon weights and w^heels and escapements 
and balances. A cen- 
tury of experimenting 
resulted in a clock with- 
out a weight (Fig. 9). ^^ -__^^_ 
In this timekeeper you ^W^^^^'^^Z^f^^^ 
recognize the begin- J |.^,^ 1 '" ^ f^h'^^ 
nings of the modern ^, 
watch. The uncoiling fig. 9.— a clock without 

of a spring drove the weights. 

machinery. Instead of the balancing beam WMth its 
weights as in De Vick's clock, a balance zvheel is 
used. The escapement is the same as in the first 
w^eight-clock. The busy and delicately-hung little 
balance wheel in your watch is a growth from 
De Vick's clumsy balance beam. The spring-clock 
would run in any position. Because it could be car- 
ried about it led almost at once to the watch. Many 
places claim the distinction of having made the first 
watch, but it seems that the honor belongs to the 
city of Niirenburg. '' Niirenburg eggs,'' as the first 
portable clocks were called, were made as early as 
1470. The first w^atches were large, uncouth affairs, 

223 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




FIG. 10. — A WATCH 
OF THE i6tH 
CENTURY. 



resembling small table clocks but by the end of the 
sixteenth century small watches with works of brass 

and cases of gold or silver were 
manufactured (Fig. lo). 

The last important step In the 
development of the clock was 
taken when the pendulum was 
brought into use. The history of 
the pendulum will always include 
a story told by Galileo. This 
great astronomer, the story runs, 
while worshiping In the cathe- 
dral at Pisa one day, found the service dull, and 
began to observe the swinging of the lamps which 
were suspended from the ceiling. Using his pulse 
as a timekeeper he learned that where the chains were 
of the same length the lamp swayed to and fro in 
equal length of time, whether 
they traveled through a short 
space or a long space. This ob- 
servation set the philosopher to 
experimenting with pendulums 
of different lengths. Among 
the many things he learned one 
of the most important was this: 
a pendulum thirty-nine Inches In 
length will make one vibration in 
just one second of time. Now, 
If the pendulum could only be 
kept swinging and Its vibrations 

224 




FIG. IT. — GALILEOS 

PENDULUM. (1650.) 



THE CLOCK 



counted It would serve as a clock. Galileo, of 
course, saw this, and he caused to be made a machine 
for keeping the pendulum in motion (Fig. ii), but 
he did not make a clock; he did not connect his 
pendulum with the works 
of a clock. This, how- 
ever, was done about the 
middle of the seventeenth 
century, although it is 
somewhat difficult to tell 
who was the first to do it. 
The honor is claimed by 
an Englishman, a French- 
man, and a Dutchman. 
The truth is, clockmak- 
ers throughout Europe 
were trying at the same 
time to make the best of 
the discoveries of Gali- 
leo, and several of them 
about the same time con- 
structed clocks with pen- 
dulums. The one who 
seems to have succeeded 
first was Christian Huygens, a Dutch astronomer, 
who, in 1656, constructed a clock, the motions of 
which were regulated by the swinging of a 
pendulum (Fig. 12). The weight was attached 
to a cord passing over a pulley and gave motion to 
all the wheels, as in De Vick's clock. Like De 
^^ 225 




FIG. 12. — THE FIRST PENDULUM 
CLOCK. (1656.) 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

Vick's clock also Huygens's clock had Its escapement 
wheel acting upon two pallets. In the Dutchman's 
clock, however, the escapement, instead of turning a 
balance beam to and fro, acted upon the pendulum, 
giving it enough motion to keep it from stopping. 

We need not carry our story further than the in- 
vention of Huygens. Timepieces are cheaper and 
better made and more accurate than they were two 
hundred years ago, but no really important discovery 
has been made since the pendulum was introduced. 



226 



THE BOOK 

WHAT is a book? It is an invention by 
means of which thought is recorded, and 
carried about in the world, and handed down from 
one age to another. Almost as soon as men began 
to think they began to make books and they will 
probably continue to make them as long as they con- 
tinue to think. The story of the Book, therefore, 
takes us back to the very beginning of human exist- 
ence. 

At first thought was recorded and preserved by 
tradition. An account of a nation's deeds, its laws, 
the precepts of its religion w^ere stamped, printed, on 
the memory of persons specially trained to memorize 
these things and hand them down by word of mouth 
from generation to generation (Fig. i). These 
persons were usually priests, who underw^ent long 
years of daily and hourly training in memorizing 
what was to be handed down. The Sanskrit Vedas, 
the sacred scripture of the Hindoos, were for many 
centuries transmitted by tradition, and it is said it 
took forty years to memorize them. It is a wonder 
it did not take longer, for the ^'edas make a volume 
as large as our Bible. It is believed that primitive 
people everywhere first adopted the method of tra- 

227 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

dition to record and preserve the thought which they 
did not wish to perish. We may say, then, that the 





FIG. I. TRADITIOX. 

A Mural Decoration in the Library of Congress. 

first book was written on the tablet of the human 
memory. 

The first step in the growth of the book was taken 
when memory aids w^ere invented. Sometimes we 
tie a knot in a handkerchief to help us to remember 
something. Now, it was just by tying knots that 
primitive man first lent assistance to the memory. 
The first material book was doubtless a series of 
knots well represented by the quipii (Fig. 2) of the 
ancient Peruvians. This curious-looking book was 
written (tied) by one known as the ofl^cer of the 
knots. It contains an account of the strength of the 
Peruvian army, although it is confessed that its exact 
meaning cannot be made out. It was not intended to 

228 



THE BOOK 

be read by any one who was not a keeper of the knots. 
Books made of knots were used by nearly all the 
ancient peoples of South America and by some of 
those of Asia. Akin to the knotted cord is the 
notched stick, which is still used in Australia by the 
savages to assist the memory of one who has a mes- 
sage to carry. Figure 3 shows a variety of such 
message-sticks. The lowest one — a crooked branch 
of a tree — contains an invitation to a dancing party. 
The notches are read by the messenger. The 
notched stick as an aid to memory is not confined 
to savage races. Many a highly civilized baker has 



L 




FIG. 2. — THE QUIPU OF 
THE PERUVIANS. 




<^^^^^ii^ (^^^j^^ 



FIG. 3. — MESSAGE-STICKS. 



V^ 



kept his accounts by making notches in sticks and so 
has many a modern dairyman, as he has delivered 
milk from door to door. 

Memory aids were followed by pictiire-ivriting. 
To express thought by means of pictures is an in- 
stinct shared alike by the lowest savage and the most 
enlightened people. All over the earth we find ex- 

229 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 




riG. 4. — PICTURE WRIT 
ING. 



u 



amples of early picture-writing. A beloved chief 
had died, a fierce battle had been fought, an exciting 
chase had occurred: promptly the event was pictured 
on a stone or on the skin of some animal. Pages 
might be filled w^ith illustrations of these primitive 

picture-books, but we must be 
content w^ith a single specimen 
(Fig. 4). This was found 
painted on a rock in Califor- 
nia : ^^ We selected this as a 
caitiping place^ hut we have 
found nothing/^ say the hu- 
man figures f, gy hy i. The 
upturned palms say plainly, 
nothing, nothing." ^^ One of our comrades (d) 
has died of starvation/^ say the three lank figures 
at c pointing to their own lean bodies. ^^ fVe deeply 
mourn his loss/^ says the sorrow-stricken a. ^^ JVe 
Jiave gone northward/^ says j, his distinguished arm 
extended to the north. 

Practice in picture-making was bound to lead to 
shorter methods of expressing ideas. It was soon 
found that reduced pictures, or picture-signs, would 
suffice to express ideas. Thus, if the idea of sorrow 
was to be expressed it was not necessary to draw an 
elaborate picture of a sorrowful looking man like a 
in Figure 4; a weeping eye would express the idea 
just as well. Instead of numerous figures {e, f, g, 
h, i) weeping and saying, '* nothing here," a single 
pair of empty palms would say the same thing just 

230 



THE BOOK 

as clearly. In this way a pair of clasped hands 
came to mean ^'friendship"; two trees meant ''a 
forest " ; a calf running toward water meant " thirst." 
These picture-signs, of course, assumed the form in 
which they could be most easily and rapidly drawn. 
The weeping eye became "f^^ ; the pair of ex- 
tended palms / 1 ; the forest T T ; thirst ^^^"O^. 

A simple picture of this kind became a fixed con- 
ventional sign for certain ideas; it was always drawn 
in the same way and it always stood for the same 
idea. 

Picture-signs (ideographs) followed picture-writ- 
ing in almost every country where the people were 
progressive. China was writing its books with 
picture-signs many thousands of years ago, and it is 
w^riting them in the same clumsy w^ay still. Even in 
highly civilized countries picture-signs have not been 
entirely abandoned. Examine the advertising page 
of a newspaper or observe the business signs on the 
street and you will find picture-signs — pictures that 
are always made in the same way and that ahvays 
stand for the same thing. 

Each of the great nations of antiquity had its own 
peculiar system of writing, but the system that should 
interest us most is that of ancient Egypt, for it is to 
ancient Egypt that you must look for the origin of 
the book that is in your hands. The book in Egypt 
passed through the stages of tradition, memory aids, 
picture-writing and picture-signs (ideographs) ; then 

231 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

it passed into the alphabetic stage. Since the alpha- 
bet is certainly the most wonderful and perhaps the 
most useful of all inventions, and since it is an Egyp- 
tian invention, it is well worth your while to learn 
how the Egyptian picture-signs — hieroglyphics they 
are called — grew into letters, but if you wish to 
understand the change you will have to give the sub- 
ject very close attention. 

Well, here was the Egyptian system of picture- 
signs consisting of several thousand pictures of birds, 
beasts, reptiles, insects, trees, flowers, and objects of 
almost every description. Now suppose you were 
employed in wTiting English by means of several 
thousand picture-signs and in the course of an hour 
would have to write the words mamge^ mansion^ 
mantle^ mand^te^ might it not occur to you that it 
would be a good thing if that sound man could be 

represented by the picture-sign for man ( JT ) ? 

And if you had to write treacle^ treason^ treaty^ 
might you not feel like beginning these words with 

a tree ( T ) ? At some time in the remote past 

Egyptian scribes — priests they usually were — no- 
ticing that syllables identical in sound were con- 
stantly recurring in the different words, began to 
represent these syllable-sounds that occurred most 
frequently by picture-signs,^ The picture-sign sub- 
stituted for a syllable-sound was placed in the word 

1 The illustration is taken from Kcary's '' Dawn of History." 

232 



THE BOOK 

not because it stood for an uica^ but because it stood 
for a sound, just as in the case supposed above you 

would use the ^ or the T not because it repre- 
sented a thought, but because it had a certain sound. 
So certain Egyptian picture-signs began to be used 
to represent the sound of certain syllables. The 
picture-signs thus chosen were called phonograrns. 

The phonogram led to the alphabet. The scribes 
in seeking a way to shorten their work found that 
the syllable itself could be broken up into separate 
sounds. For example, w^hen they came to the sylla- 
ble whose sound is spelled by our thiee letters 
pad, they found that it had three distinct sounds, 
namely: (i) one a lip sound which could be rep- 

resented by the first sound of the pictu^e-sign L^ 

(a door) ; (2) one an open-throat or vowel sound 
which could be represented by the first sound of the 




picture-sign /^ (an eagle) ; (3) one a dental 

sound which could be represented by the first sound 
in the picture-sign r^Sit (^ hand) . So the scribes 
wrote the syllable (p-a-d) with the three characters 



s^ 



And so with all the other 



sounds in the Egyptian language; each was repre- 
sented by one of the picture-signs already used. 
Since there were only about twenty-five distinct ele- 

233 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

mentary sounds In the Egyptian language, twenty- 
five picture-signs were sufficient to represent any 
sound or any word in the language. These twenty- 
five picture-sounds were the letters of the Egyptian 
alphabet. Twenty-five characters instead of thou- 
sands! Now the Egyptian youth could learn to 
read in three or four years, whereas under the old 
system it took fifteen or twenty years, just as it takes 
fifteen or tw^enty years for the Chinese youth to learn 
to read well. 

Now that its origin has been explained, the story 
of the alphabet may be rapidly told. Indeed, its 
whole history can be learned from Figure 5. In 
column (a) are the three Egyptian picture-signs re- 
ferred to above. Column (b) shows how the rapid 
writing of the priests reduced the old hieroglyphics 

to script; Lj became S^y . J^r became ^^ 



^nd cJ2^ became ^ggSS^ . The Phoenicians, who 
were great travelers, visited Egypt at a very early 
date and borrow^ed not only the idea of the alphabet, 
but also the forms of the Egyptian letters, as column 
c shows. Column d confirms the words of Herod- 
otus, who tells us that the Greeks borrowed their 
alphabet from the Phoenicians. Column e shows 
that the Greeks handed the alphabet on to the 
Romans, who handed it on to us. Thus the three 
letters p, a, d come straight from the Egyptians and 
were originally a door, an eagle, and a hand, re- 

234 



THE BOOK 

spectively. As it Is with these three letters, so it Is 
with nearly all the letters of our alphabet. If the 
letters on the page before you could be suddenly 
changed to their original form, you would behold a 
motley collection of birds, serpents, animals, tools, 
and articles of household use. 



[ (a) 


(b) 


(c) 


(d) 

Zj 
s- 

o 

•q 


(e) 

o 

p 


m Egyptian 
Picture- Signs. 


c 
o 


3 
a 

? 


-^ 


^ 


2L 


\ 


A 


A 


fS:. 


-9 


A 


A 


D 



FIG. 5. — ^ SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THREE 
LETTERS, P, A, AND D. 

We must look to Egypt for the origin of the ma- 
terial form of our book as well as for the origin 
of our alphabetical characters. Before history had 
dawned the Egyptians had covered over with their 
writing nearly all the available surface on their pyra- 
mids and in their temples. At a time too far back 
for a date necessity seems to have compelled them 

235 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

to seek a substitute for stone. This they found in 
the papyrus plant, which grew in great luxuriance 
in the valley of the Nile. They placed side by side 
strips of the pith of the papyrus, and across these at 



i^ 




FIG. 6. — AN ANCIENT VOLUME. 

right angles they placed another layer of strips. 
The two layers were then glued together and pressed 
until a smooth surface was formed. This made one 
sheet. To make a book a number of sheets were 
fastened together end to end. When in book form 

236 



THE BOOK 

the papyrus was wound around a stick and kept In 
the form of a roll, a volume (Fig. 6). The roll 
was usually eight or ten inches wide, but its length 
might be upward of a hundred feet. This papyrus 
roll was the parent of our modern paper book, as 
the word papyrus is the original of our word paper. 
The pen used in writing upon papyrus was a split 
reed {calamus) ^ and the ink a mixture of soot and 
gum. 




FIG. 7. — THE OLDEST BOOK IN THE WORLD. WRITTEN NEARLY 5,0OO 

YEARS AGO. 



The most ancient volume in the world is an Egyp- 
tian papyrus (Fig. 7) now in the National Library 
of France. It was written nearly 5,000 years ago 
by an aged sage and contains precepts of right living. 
In this oldest of volumes we find this priceless gem: 

*' If thou art become great, if after being in pov- 
erty thou hast amassed riches and art become the 
first in the city, if thou art known for thy wealth and 
art become a great lord, let not thy heart become 

237 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

proud, for it is God who is the author of them for 
thee." 

In Assyria and in other ancient countries of 
Central Asia letters were engraved on cylinders 
and these were rolled upon slabs of soft clay, mak- 
ing an impression of the raised letters, just as 
w^e make an impression with the seal of a .ring. In 
the ruins of the cities of Assyria these old clay 
books may be found by the cart-load. The Assyrian 
cyHnder was really the first printing press. In an- 
'^ cient Greece and Rome wooden tablets within which 
was spread a thin layer of wax were used as a writ- 
ing surface in schools and in the business world. 
The writing on the wax was done wuth a sharp- 
pointed instrument of bone or iron called the stylus. 
But next to papyrus the most important writing ma- 
terial of antiquity was parchment^ or the prepared 
skin of young calves and kids. The invention of 
parchment is said to have been due to the literary 
ambitions of two kings, the king of Persia and the 
king of Egypt. The king of Pergamus (250 B.C.) 
wishing to have the finest and largest library in the 
w^orld w^as consuming enormous quantities of pa- 
pyrus. The king of Egypt, who also washed to have 
the finest library in the world, in order to cripple 
the plans of his literary rival, issued a command for- 
bidding the exportation of papyrus from Egypt. 
The king of Pergamus, being unable to get pa- 
pyrus except from Egypt, caused the skins of sheep 
to be prepared, and on these skins books for his 

238 



THE BOOK 

library continued to be written. The prepared 
skins receiv^ed the name of pcr^amoia^ because they 
were made in Pergamus, and from pergamena we 
get the word parchment. This is the story that has 
come down to us to explain the origin of parchment, 
but it cannot be accepted as wholly true. We know 
very w^ell that the Old Testament was written in gold 
on a roll of skins long before there was a king of 
Pergamus. Indeed, writing w^as done on skins as 
far back as the picture-writing period. 

After the invention of the alphabet and of paper 
(papyrus) books multiplied as never before. ^' Of 
making many books there is no end,'' exclaimed 
Solomon a thousand years before the Christian 
era. Greece in her early day w^as slow to make 
books, but after she learned from the Phoenicians 
(800 B.C.) how to use an alphabet she made up for 
lost time. In 600 B.C. there was a public library at 
Athens, and 200 years later the Greeks had written 
more good books than all the other countries in the 
world combined. 

But the most productive of ancient book-makers 
were the Romans. In Rome publishing houses were 
flourishing in the time of Cicero (50 B.C.). Atticus, 
one of Cicero's best friends, was a publisher. Let 
us see how a book was made in his establishment. 
Of course, there were no type-setters or printing- 
presses. Every book was a manuscript; every word 
of every copy had to be written with a pen. The 
writing was sometimes done by slaves trained to 

239 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

write neatly and rapidly. We may imagine 50 or 
100 slaves sitting at desks in a room writing to the 
dictation of the reader. Now if Atticus had ten 
readers each of whom dictated to 100 slaves it took 
only two or three days for the publication of 1,000 
copies of one of his friend Cicero's books. Of 
course every copy w^ould not be perfect. The slave 
vv'ould sometimes make blunders and write what the 
reader did not dictate. But books in our own time 
are not free of errors. An English poet recently 
wrote : 

''' Like dew-drops upon fresh blown roses." 

In print the first letter of the last word in the line 
appeared as n instead of r. This mistake disfigured 
thousands of copies. In the Roman publishing 
house such a blunder marred only one copy. 

You can readily see that by methods just described 
books could be made in great numbers. And so 
they were. Slaves were cheap and numerous and 
the cost of publication was small. It is estimated 
that a good sized volume in Nero's time (50 A.D.) 
would sell for a shilling. Books were cheaper in 
those days than they had ever been before and al- 
most as cheap as they are to-day, perhaps. The 
Roman world became satiated with reading matter. 
The poet Martial exclaimed, *' Every one has me 
in his pocket, every one has me in his hand." Books 
became a drug on the market and could be sold only 
to grocers for '^ wrapping up pastry and spices." 

2^0 



THE BOOK 

But a time was to come when books would not be 
so plentiful and cheap. With the overthrow of 




FIG. 8. — BOOK-MAKING IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

Rome (476 A.D.) culture received a blow from 
which it did not recover for a thousand years. The 
barbarian invaders of Southern Europe destroyed all 
the books they could find and caused the writers of 
books to flee within the walls of the churches. 
Throughout the Middle Ages nearly all the writing 
in Europe was done In the religious houses of monks 
(Fig. 8), and nearly all the books written were of a 
religious nature. The monks worked with the great- 
est patience and care upon their manuscripts. They 
often wrote on vellum (calf-skin parchment) and 
illuminated the page with beautiful colors and 
adorned It with artistic figures. 

The manuscript volumes of the dark ages were 
beautiful and magnificent, but their cost was so great 

241 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

that only the most wealthy could buy. A Bible 
would sometimes cost thousands of dollars. Along 
in the 14th and 15th centuries Europe began to thirst 
for know^ledge and there arose a demand for cheap 
books. How could the demand be met? There 
were now no hordes of intelligent slaves who could 
be put to w^ork with their pens, and without slave 
labor the cost of the written book could not be 
greatly reduced. Invention, as always, came to the 
rescue and gave the world what it wanted. 

In the first place, writing material was made 
cheaper by the invention of paper-making. The 
wasp in making its nest had given a hint for paper- 
making, but man was extremely slow to take the 
hint. The Chinese had done something in the way 
of making paper from the bark of trees as early as 
the first century, but it was not until the middle of 
the 13th century that paper began to be manufac- 
tured in Europe from hemp, rags, linen, and cotton. 

In the second place, printing was invented. On 

a strip of transparent paper write the word post. 

Now turn the strip over from right to left and trace 

the letters on the smooth surface of a block of wood. 

—^^^^^^^ Remove the paper and you will have 

r[ jH the result shown in Figure 9. With a 

sharp knife cut out the wood from 

around the letters. Ink the raised 

letters and press upon them a piece of paper. You 

have printed the word ^^ post " in precisely the way 

the first books were printed. In the 13th century 

242 



THE BOOK 



fancy designs were engraved on wood and by the aid 
of ink the figures were stamped on silk and linen. 
In the 14th century playing cards and books were 
printed on engraved blocks in the manner the word 
'^ post '' w^as printed above. (Fig. 10.) The 
block-book was the first step in the art of printing. 

The block-book decreased the cost 
of a book, for when a page was once 
engraved as many impressions could 
be taken as were wanted, yet it did 
not meet the necessities of the time. 
In the middle of the 15th century 
the desire for reading began to re- 
semble a frenzy and the books that 
could be got hold of ^' were :.: in- 
sufficient to slake the thirsty craving 
for religious and material knowl- 
edge as a few rain drops to quench 
the burning thirst of the traveler in 
the desert who seeks for long, deep- 
draughts at copious springs of living 
water.'' To meet the demand of the time book- 
makers everywhere were trying to improve on the 
block-making process and by the end of the century 
the book as we have it to-day was being made 
throughout all Europe. 

In w^hat did the improvement consist? First let 
us call to mind what the book-maker in the early 
part of the 15th century had to begin with; he had 
paper, he had printing-ink, he had skill in engrav- 

243 




FIG. 10. — A BLOC K 
PRINT CONTAIN- 
ING THE AL- 
PHABET USED 
BY CHILDREN 
WHEN LEARN- 
ING TO READ. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

ing whole pages for block-books, and he had a rude 
kind of printing-press. The improvement consisted 
in this: Instead of engraving a whole page on a 
block, single letters were engraved on little blocks 
called types, and when a word or a line or a page 




FIG. II. — AN EARLY PRINTING PRESS. 

was to be printed these types were set in the position 
desired; in other words, the improvement consisted* 
in the invention of moveable types. The types were 
first made of wood and afterward of metal. 

The great advantage of the moveable types over 
the block-book is easily seen. A block containing, 
say, the word ^' post '' is useless except for printing 
the word post; but divide it into four blocks, each 
containing a letter: now you can print post^ spot, 
tops, stop, top, sop, sot, pot, so, to and so forth. 

The exact date of the invention of moveable types 

244 



THE BOOK 

cannot be determined. We can only say that they 
were first used between 1450 and 1460. Nor can 
we tell who invented them. The Dutch claim that 
Lawrence Koster of Harlem (Holland) made some 
moveable types as early as 1430, and that John 
Faust, an employee, stole them and carried them 
to Mayence (Germany), where John Gutenberg 
learned the secret of printing with them. The Ger- 
mans claim that Gutenberg was the real inventor. 
Much can be said in behalf of both claims. What 
we really know is that the earliest complete book 
printed on moveable types was a Bible which came 
from the press of John Gutenberg in 1455. 

Since 1450 there has been no discovery that has 
changed the character of the printed volume. There 
have been wonderful improvements in the processes 
of making and setting type, and printing-presses 
(Fig. 11) have become marvels of mechanical skill, 
but the book of to-day is essentially like the book of 
four hundred years ago. The tablet of the memory, 
the knotted cord and notched stick, the uncanny 
picture-writing, the clumsy picture-sign, the alphabet, 
the manuscript volume, the printed block-book and 
the volume before you bring to an end the story of 
the book. 



245 



THE MESSAGE 

MEN had not been living together long in a 
state of society before they found it necessary 
to communicate with their fellow-men at a distance 
and in order to do this the message was invented. 
We have seen (p. 205) that among certain tribes of 
savages notched sticks bearing messages were sent 
from one tribe to another. Among the ancient 
Peruvians the message took the form of the curious 
looking quipu. After the alphabet had been in- 
vented and papyrus had come into use as a writing 
material, the message took the form of a written 
document and resembled somewhat the modern letter. 

The ancient Egyptians, as we 
would expect, were the first to make 
use of the letter in the sending of 
messages (Fig. i). The ancient 
Hebrews were also familiar with the 
FIG. I.— A LETTER Icttcr as a means of communication. 
oET^GYPr' We read in the book of Chronicles 
how the post went with the letters 
of the king and his princes throughout all Israel. 
The word post^ as used here and elsewhere in the 
Bible, signifies a runner, that is, one specially 
trained to deliver letters or despatches speedily 

246 




THE MESSAGE 



by running. Thus Jeremiah predicted that after 
the fall of Babylon '' one post shall run to meet 
another and one messenger to meet another to show 
the King that his city is taken.'' Although we fre- 
quently read of the post in Biblical times we are no- 
where told that the ordinary people enjoyed the 
privileges of the post. In olden times It was only 
kings and princes and persons of high degree that 
sent and received letters. 

In nearly all the countries of antiquity there was 
an organized postal system which was under the con- 
trol of the govern- 
ment and which car- 
r i e d only govern- 
ment messages. In 
Egypt there were 
postal chariots (Fig. 
2 ) of wonderful 
lightness designed especially for carrying the let- 
ters of the king at the greatest possible speed. 
In ancient Judea messengers must have traveled 
very fast, for Job, In his old age, says: ^^ Now 
my days are swifter than the post, they flee away.'' 
In ancient Persia the postal system awakened 
the admiration of Herodotus. '' Nothing mortal," 
says this old Greek historian, '' travels so fast 
as these Persian messengers. The entire plan 
Is a Persian invention and this is the method 
of It. Along the whole line of road there are 
men stationed with horses, the number of sta- 

247 




FIG. 2. — AN EGYPTIAN MAIL CART. 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

tions being equal to the number of days which the 
journey takes, allowing a man and a horse to each 
day, and these men will not be hindered from accom- 
plishing at their best speed the distance they will 
have to go either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by 
the darkness of night. The first rider delivers the 
message to the second and the second to the third, 
and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole 
line." 

The postal system which Herodotus found in 
Persia was better than the system which existed in 
his own country for the reason that the Greeks re- 
lied upon human messengers 
rather than upon horses to 
carry their messages. Young 
Greeks were specially trained 
(f'ig- 3) ^s runners for the 
postal service and Greek his- 
tory contains accounts of the 
marvelous endurance and 
swiftness of those employed 
to carry messages. After the defeat of the 
Persians by the Greeks at Marathon (490 B.C.) a 
runner carried the news southward and did not pause 
for rest until he reached Athens when he shouted 
the word ^^ Victory! " and expired, being overcome 
by fatigue. Another Greek, Phillipides by name, 
was despatched from Athens to Sparta to ask the 
Spartans for aid in the w^ar which the Athenians w^ere 
carrying on against Persia, and the distance between 

248 



/ ^-^ -^ 


-^. 


•1 "'■ 1^ 








^iSl^^^^'\ 


(/^ 


i^^»fa^^~^ 1/ 


'"T'-'-O^ 


|IBBHI^^— a ' 


'^ '" "^ I 


( z^^^^v/' ■ ' 




^_i^^^^_.,^ 


-^ — X^i^— -'-"■-^ff^L^^^^B^^S^^^-^-Vi, 


■ — T".^ 


^* i" — ^^^ 


FIG. 3-— A 


LETTER CARRIER 


OF ANCIENT GREECE. 







THE MESSAGE 

the two cities — about 140 miles — was acconi- 
plished by the runner in less than two days. 

But the best postal system of ancient times was 
the one which was organized by the Romans. As 
one country after another 
was brought under the do- 
minion of Rome it became 
more and more necessary 
for the Roman government 
to keep in close touch with 
all the parts of the vast 
empire. Accordingly, b y ^^^- 4 — a letter carrier of 

. ^ • ■' ANCIENT ROME. 

the time or Augustus (14 

A.D.), there was established throughout the Ro- 
man world a fully organized and well-equipped sys- 
tem of posts. Along the magnificent roads which 
led out from Rome there were built at regular 
distances stations, or post-houses, where horses 
and riders were stationed for the purpose of receiv- 
ing the messages of the government and hurry- 
ing them along to the place of their destination. 
The stations were only five or six miles apart and 
each station was provided with a large number of 
horses and riders. By the frequent changes of 
horses a letter could be hurried along with consider- 
able speed (Fig. 4). *' By the help of the relays,'' 
says Gibbon, ^' it was easy to travel a hundred miles 
in a day.'' 

When Rome fell (476 A.D.) before the attacks of 
barbarous tribes her excellent postal system fell with 

249 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

her and many centuries passed before messages could 
again be regularly and quickly despatched between 
widely separated points. Charles the Great, the 
emperor of the Franks, established (800 A.D.) a 
postal system in his empire but the service did not 
long survive the great ruler. In the 13th century 
the merchants of the Hanse towns of Northern Ger- 
many could communicate with each other somewhat 
regularly by letter, but the ordinary people of these 
towns did not enjoy the privileges of a postal service. 
In the Middle Ages, as in the ancient times, the pub- 
lic post was established solely for the benefit of the 
government. Private messages had to be sent as best 
they could be by private messengers and at private 
expense. As late as the reign of Henry VIII 
( 1 509-1 547) the only regular post route in England 
was one which was established for the exclusive use 
of the king. 

But the time was soon to come when ordinary 
citizens as well as officers of state were to share in 
the benefits of a postal system. In 1635 Charles I 
of England gave orders that a post should run night 
and day between Edinburgh and London and that 
postmen should take with them all such letters as 
might be directed to towns on or near the road which 
connected the two cities. The rate of postage ^ was 

^ In the payment of the postage no stamps were as yet used. 
Indeed the postage stamp is a late invention. Postage stamps 
were not used in England until the year 1840, while in the 
United States they were not regularly used until 1847. 

250 



THE MESSAGE 

fixed at two pence for a single letter when the dis- 
tance was under sixty miles; four pence when the 
distance was between 60 and 140 miles; six pence 
for any longer distance in England; and eight pence 
from London to any place in Scotland. It was 
ordered that only messengers of the king should be 
allowed to carry letters for profit unless to places to 
which the king's post did not go. Here was the 
beginning of the modern postal system and the mod- 
ern post-oflSce. Henceforth the post was to carry 
not only the king's messages, but the messages of all 
people who would pay the required postage. 

The example set by England In thrqwing the post 
open to the public was followed by other nations, 
and before a hundred years had passed nearly all 
the civilized countries of the w^orld were enjoying 
the privilege and blessings of a well-organized postal 
system. It Is true that the post for a long time 
moved very slowly — a hundred miles a day was 
regarded as a flying rate — and postage for a long 
time was very high, but the service grew constantly 
better and by the close of the nineteenth century 
trains were dashing along w^Ith the mails at the rate 
of a thousand miles a day and postage within a coun- 
try had been reduced to two cents, ^ while for a nickel 

1 In 1840, the English government following the recommenda- 
tions of Sir Rowland Hill, adopted throughout the United King- 
dom a uniform rate of one penny for letters not exceeding half 
an ounce in weight, and after this cheap postage became the 
rule in all countries. 

251 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

a letter could be sent to the most distant parts of the 
globe. 

Thus far we have traced the history of only one 
kind of message, the kind that has the form of a 
written document and that is conveyed by a human 
carrier over land and w^ater from one place to an- 
other. But there is a kind of message which is not 
borne along by human hands and which does not 
travel on land or water. This is the telegraph,^ the 
message which darts through space and is delivered 
at a distant point almost at the very instant at which 
it is sent. 

The first telegraph was an aerial message and con- 
sisted of a signal made by a flash of light. From the 
earliest times men have used fire signals as a means 
of sending messages to distant points. When the 
city of Troy in Asia Minor was captured by the 
Greeks (about iioo B.C.) torches flashing their 
light from one mountain top to another quickly car- 
ried the news to the far-off cities of Greece. The 
ancient Greeks gave a great deal of attention to the 
art of signaling by fire and they invented several 
very ingenious systems of aerial telegraphy. The 
most interesting of these systems is one invented and 
described by the Greek historian Polybius, who 
flourished about 150 B.C. When signaling with 
fire Polybius arranged for using two groups of 
torches with five torches in each group, and for the 
purpose of understanding the signals he divided the 

^ The verb telegraph means to write at a distance afar off. 

252 



THE MESSAGE 

letters of the alphabet into five groups of five letters 
each.^ The torches were raised according to a phm 
that made it possible to flash a signal that would in- 
dicate any letter of the alphabet that might be de- 
sired. Thus if the desired letter was the third one 
of the first group — that is, the letter k — one torch 




^^■^i0&^ 







FIG. 



TELEGRAPHING BY MEANS OF FIRE, I50 13.C. 



would show which group was meant and three torches 
would show which letter was meant (Fig. 5). In 
theory this system was perfect, for it provided for 
sending any kind of message whatever. But in prac- 

1 As there are only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet, the last 
group was one letter short, but this did not interfere with the 
working of the system. 

253 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

tice it had little value, for it required so many torches 
and signals that an entire night was consumed in 
spelling out a few words. 

Although the elaborate system of aerial telegraph 
proposed by Polybius was not generally adopted, 
nevertheless for centuries, both in ancient times and 
during the middle ages, the fire signal was every- 
where used for the quick despatch of important news. 
In the seventeenth century inventors began to devise 
new systems of aerial telegraphy. In 1663, the 
Marquis of Worcester, who was always busy with 
some great invention (p. 178), announced to the 
world that he had discovered a plan by which one 
could talk with another as far as the eye could dis- 
tinguish between black and white, and that this con- 
versation could be carried on by night as well as by 
day, even though the night were as dark and as 
black as pitch. But the telegraph of the Marquis 
was like many of his other inventions — it was 
chiefly on paper. In 1684, Dr. Robert Hooke of 
England invented a method by which aerial messages 
could be sent a distance of thirty or forty miles. 
His plan was to erect on hill tops a series of high 
poles connected above by cross-pieces and by means 
of pulleys suspend from the cross-pieces the letters 
of the alphabet which would spell out the message 
(Fig. 6). In order to read the letters at such great 
distances the eye was assisted by the telescope, an 
instrument which had recently been invented. 

But the greatest improvement in aerial telegraphy 

254 



THE MESSAGE 



was made during the French Rev^olutlon by Claude 
Chappe, a Frenchman living in Paris. In 1793, 
Chappe erected on the roof of the palace of the 
Louvre a post at the top of which w^as a cross-beam 
which moved on a pivot about the center like a scale 
beam (Fig. 7). The cross-beam could be moved 





FIG. 6. — hooke's ae- 
rial TELEGRAPH, 
1684. 



FIG. 7. — CHAPPE S 
AERIAL TELE- 

GRAPH, 1793. 



horizontally, vertically or at almost any angle by 
means of cords. Chappe invented a number of po- 
sitions for these arms and each position stood for a 
certain letter of the alphabet. Machines of this 
kind were erected on towers at places from nine to 
twelve miles apart and soon Chappe was sending 
messages from Paris to the city of Lille, 130 miles 
away. The messages were sent with great rapidity, 
for they passed from one tower to another with the 

25s 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

velocity of light — about 185,000 miles a second — 
and it was possible for the operator to spell out 
about 100 words in an hour. And Chappe's mes- 
sages could be sent at any time, day or night, for 
the arms of the machine Avere furnished with Argand 
lamps for night work. 

Chappe's invention w^as the greatest which had 
thus far been made in the history of the message. 
The new system of telegraphy proved to be entirely 
successful and practical and it was not long before 
machines similar to those invented by Chappe were 
in use in England and other countries. In 1828, 
an English writer had the following w^ords of praise 
for aerial telegraphy: '' Telegraphs have now been 
brought to so great a degree of perfection that they 
carry information so speedily and distinctly and are 
so much simplified that they can be constructed and 
maintained at little expense. The advantages, too, 
which result from their use are almost inconceivable. 
Not to speak of the speed with which information is 
communicated and orders given in time of war, by 
means of these aerial signals the w^hole kingdom 
could be prepared in an instant to oppose an invading 
enemy." 

But the aerial telegraph was soon to have a most 
dangerous rival. This rival was the electric tele- 
graph. Many years before the invention of Chappe 
men had been experimenting with electricity with a 
view of sending messages by means of an electric 
current. These experiments began in 1728 when 

256 



THE MESSAGE 



an Englishman named (jray caused electricity to 
produce motion in light bodies located at a distance 
of more than 600 feet. In I74(S, the great Benja- 
min Franklin, who conducted so many wonderful 
experiments in electricity, sent an electric current 
through a wire which was stretched across the Schuyl- 
kill River and set fire to some alcohol which w^as at 
the opposite end of the w^re. We may regard the 
flash of alcohol as a telegraph, for It could have been 
used as a signal. In 18 19, Professor Oersted of 
Copenhagen brought a magnetic needle close to a 
body through which an electric current was passing 
and he observed that the needle had a tendency to 
place Itself at right angles to the electrified body. 
In 1825, William Sturgeon of England coiled a 
copper wire around a bar of soft Iron and found 
that when a current of electricity was sent through 
the wire the bar of Iron be- 
came a temporary magnet; 
that Is, the bar of Iron at- 
tracted a needle when the 
current was passing through 
the wire and ceased to at- 
tract It when the current 
was broken (Fig. 8). 
These discoveries of Oer- 
sted and Sturgeon led to the Invention known 
as the elcctro'inagnet and the electro-magnet 
led rapidly to the invention of the electric tele- 
graph, for by means of the electro-magnet a slg- 




FIG. 



8. — STURGEON" ELECTRO- 
MAGNET, 1825. 



17 



-W 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

nal can be sent to a distance as far as a cur- 
rent of electricity can be sent along a wire. In 
1 83 1, Professor Joseph Henry, one of America's 
most distinguished scientists, discovered a method by 




FIG. 9. — PROFESSOR HENRYS ELECTRO- MAGNET, 
1832. 

which an electric current could be sent along a wire 
for a very great distance. The next year Henry 
constructed and operated an apparatus which was 
essentially an electric telegraph (Fig. 9). ^' I ar- 
ranged/' he said, " around one of the upper rooms 
of the Albany Academy a wire of more than a mile 
in length through which I was enabled to make 
signals by sounding a bell. The mechanical ar- 
rangement for effecting this object was simply a steel 
bar permanently magnetized, supported on a pivot 
and placed with its north end between the two arms 
of a horse-shoe magnet. When the latter w^as ex- 
cited by the current the end of the bar thus placed 
was attracted by one arm of the horse-shoe and re- 

258 



THK MESSAGE 

pelled by the other and was thus caused to move In 
a horizontal plane and Its further extremky to strike 
a bell suitably adjusted/' Ihus by 1832 the elec- 
tric current had been used for sending signals at a 
distance and the electric telegraph had been invented. 
But the electric telegraph was still only a toy. 
How could it be made a practical machine? How 
could it be used for sending messages in a satisfac- 
tory manner? Inventors everywhere worked dili- 
gently to discover a satisfactory m.ethod of signaling 
and many ingenious systems were invented. As 
early as 1837 ^ telegraph line was established be- 
tween Paddington, England and Drayton — a dis- 
tance of 13 miles — and messages were sent over 
the wire. But the line failed to give satisfaction 
and its use was discontinued. The honor of invent- 
ing the first really practical and useful system of 
electrical telegraphy was at last won by an American, 
S. F. B. Morse, a painter and professor of literature 
in the University of the City of New York. In 
1832 Morse began to think about a plan for record- 
ing signals sent by electricity and by 1837 he was 
about ready to take out a patent for making signals 
'' by the mechanical force of electro-magnetic mo- 
tion.'' Morse was a poor man and he lacked the 
means of conducting his experiments. He was 
fortunate, however, in making the acquaintance and 
gaining the confidence of Alfred \'ail, a student of 
the University. Vail furnished the money for the 
experiments and assisted Morse in perfecting his 

259 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

system. Indeed some of the most original and valu- 
able features of Morse's system were invented by 
young Vail and not by Morse. In the face of much 
discouragement and bad luck Morse and Vail worked 
patiently on together and by 1843 their invention 
was completed. 

The main feature of Morse's system was to use 
the electric current for sending an alphabetical code 
consisting of certain combinations of '' dots and 
dashes.'' The '^ dots " were simply clicking sounds 
and the '' dashes " were simply intervals between 
the clicking sounds. The sounds were made by 
closing and breaking the current by means of a key 
or button (Fig. 10). If the sender of the message 
pressed upon the key and immediately released it 




FIG. 10. — THE KEY USED BY MORSE. 



he made at the other end of the line a sharp click 
which was called a *' dot," and a single dot accord- 
ing to the code was the letter E. If the sender of 
the message pressed upon the key and held it down 
for a moment he made what was called a '' dash," 
and a single dash according to the code was the letter 

260 



THE MESSAGE 

T. Thus by means of " dots and dashes '' any letter 
of the alphabet could be speedily sent. 

Morse applied to Congress to aid him in his plans 
and In 1843 ^^ secured an appropriation of $30,000 




FIG. II. — morse's telegraphic INSTRUMENT. 

for establishing a telegraph line between Baltimore 
and Washington. Morse and Vail now hurried the 
great work on and by May, 1844, the wires had 
been stretched between the two cities and the instru- 
ments were ready for trial. And such heavy, clumsy 
affairs the instruments (Fig. 11) were! ** I'hc re- 
ceiving apparatus weighed 185 pounds and it 
required the strength of two strong men to handle 
it. At the present day an c(]ually cffecti\'e magnet 

261 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

need not weigh more than four ounces and might be 
carried in the vest pocket.'' But, awkward and 
clumsy as it was, the new telegraph did its work 
well. On May 24, 1844, Morse sent from Wash- 
ington the historic message, '' What hath God 
wrought?" (Fig. 12) and in the twinkling of an 
eye it was received by Vail at BaltimxOre, forty miles 
away. 



Jr- ^ a, tr % ^a. tr ii 



C0 



4y T O ^ 



f- ' ^ ' 2^ ? 



FIG. 12. — ^ THE FIRST TELEGRAPHIC MESSAGE SENT FROM WASHINGTON 
TO BALTIMORE, MAY 24, 1 844. 

The Morse system proved to be profitable as well 
as successful and after 1844 the electric telegraph 
was soon in general use in all parts of the world. 
In the United States cities were rapidly connected 
by wire and by i860 all the principal places in the 
country could communicate with each other by tele- 
graph. In 1 861, a telegraph line extended across 
the continent and connected New York and San 
Francisco. Five, years later, thanks to the perse- 
verance and energy of Cyrus W. Field, of New 
York, the Old World and the New were joined to- 
gether by a telegraphic cable passing through the 
waters of the Atlantic from a point on the coast of 

262 - 



THE MllSSAUE 

Ireland to a point on the coast of Newfoundland. 
With the laying of this cable, in 1866, all parts of 
the world were brought into telegraphic communica- 
tion and it seemed that the last step in the develop- 
ment of the message had been taken. 

But the storv of the IVIessao-c did not end with the 
invention of the telegraph and the laying of the 
Atlantic cable. Almost as soon as inventors had 
learned how to send a current along a w^ire and make 
signals at a distance they began trying experiments 
to see if they could not also sencl sounds, especially 
the sound of the human voice, along a wire; as soon 
as they had made the telegraph they began to try to 
make the telephone.^ In 1855 Professor Wheat- 
stone of England invented an instrument by means 
of which musical sounds made in one part of a 
building were carried noiselessly along a wire 
through several intervening halls and reproduced at 
the other end of the wire in a distant part of the 
building, x^bout the same time a Frenchman named 
Bourseul produced a device by which a disk vibra- 
ting under the influence of the human voice would, 
by means of an electric current, produce similar 
vibrations of a disk located at a distance. 

About 1874 Professor Alexander Graham Bell, 
of Boston, seized upon an idea similar to that of 
BourseuTs. Bell saw in the vibrating disk a resem- 
blance to the ch'um of the human ear. In imagina- 

1 Just as the word telegraph means to " write afar otY," so 
the word telephone means to *' sound afar off.'' 

263 



STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS 

tion he beheld "' two iron disks, or ear drums, far 
apart and connected by an electrified wire, catching 
vibrations of sound at one end and reproducing them 
at the other." With this conception in mind he 
went to work to construct an apparatus that would 
actually catch the sounds of the voice and reproduce 
them at a distance. Bell, like Morse, w^as without 
means to conduct his experiments, but friends came 

to his aid and furnished 
him with the necessary 
money and by 1876 his 
labors had resulted in mak- 
ing a machine that would 
carry the human voice; he 
had invented the telephone. 
At first the telephone was 
only a toy and would op- 
FiG. 13.- PROFESSOR ALEXAN- ^j-^^c at Only short distances, 

DER GRAHAM BELL SPEAK- . -^ ' 

iNG OVER THE FIRST LONG but as improvcmcnts were 

DISTANCE TELEPHONE BE- i ^i j* ^ 

TWEEN NEW YORK AND ^^^c thc distanccs grcw 
CHICAGO. greater and greater until at 

last one could talk in Boston and be heard in Den- 
ver, or talk in New York and be heard in London. 
The telephone grew rapidly into favor as a means of 
communication and in a short time it was used more 
than the telegraph. It is estimated that in the entire 
world about ten billion conversations are held over 
the telephone in the course of a single year. 

As wonderful as the telephone was it was quickly 
followed by an invention even more wonderful. Al- 

264 




'11 IJ; Ml'lSSAGE 



most as soon as men had thoroughly mastered the 

art of sending messages by the aid of wires they set 

about trying to find a way by which messages could 

be sent long distances without any wires at all. In 

1889, Heinrich Hertz, a German scientist, showed 

that electric waves could be sent out in all directions 

just as light waves go out in all directions. He also 

showed how these waves might be produced and 

how they might be detected 

or caught as they passed 

through space. In 1896, 

William Marconi, an 

Italian electrician, making 

use of the facts discovered 

by Hertz, sent a message a 

distance of 300 feet without 

the use of wires. This was 

the first wireless telegraph, fig. 14.— a wireless tele- 

^ . . 11- GRAPH STATION. 

Marconi continued his ex- 
periments, sending wireless messages between places 
further and further apart, and by 1901 he was able to 
signal without cables across the Atlantic Ocean. 

And now It seems that the wireless telegraph Is 
to be followed by an Invention still more wonderful. 
Men are now working upon a wireless telephone. 
Already It Is possible to talk without the aid of 
w^Ires betw^een places so far apart as Newark and 
Philadelphia, and many Inventors believe that it is 
only a matter of time when the wireless telephone 
will be used side by side with the wireless telegraph. 

265 




INDEX 



Aerial messages, 252. 

Aerial telegraphy, 255-257. 

African loom, 115. 

Alfred the Great, 214. 

Alphabet, 232-235. 

Alphabetical Code, 253, 260. 

Alsop, Thomas, 129. 

Amphora, 217. 

Anacharsis, 194. 

Anchor, 193, 194. 

Arch, 169, 171. 

A re- light, 36. 

Argand, 34. 

Arkwright, 119. 

Arrows, 140. 

Atrium, 16. 

Automobile, 185. 

Awl, 125. 

Axle, 171. 



Bell, Alexander Ciraham. 263 

Bellows, 43, 47. 

Bessemer, Sir Henry, 51. 

" Black room," 16. 

Blast-furnace, 46-52. 

Block-book, 219. 

Boat, history of, 190-210 

Boiling, 15. 

Bolting (flour), 107. 

Book, history of, 227-245. 

Boomerang, 138. 

Bourseul's telephone, 263. 

Bows, 140-142. 

Branca's engine, 58, 71. 

Brazier, 18. 

Bresnier, 187, 188. 

Bronze, 38-40. 

Bronze Age, 38. 

Burning glass, 90 



B 



Bacon, Roger, 143. 
Balance-wheel (of a watch) 

223. 
Bamboo dwelling, 152. 
Basket weaving, no. 
Batten (of loom), 115. 
Beam (of plow), 75, 80. 



Cable, Atlantic, 262. 

Calamus, 213. 

Candles, 30-32, 214. 

Cannon, 144. 

Canoe, 192. 

Capital (of column), 157. 

Car, electric, 185. 

Carriage, history of, 168-189. 

Cart, 171-175- 



267 



INDEX 



Cast iron, 47. 
Cave dwellings, 149. 
Chappe, Claude, 255, 
Charcoal, 42, 48, 49. 
Charlemagne's clock, 220= 
Chariots, 175-176. 
Charlotte Dundas, 206c 
Chemical matches, 9. 
Chilcoot loom, 11 30 
Chimneys, 21. 
China, 199, 215. 
Clepsydra, 217-219. 
Clermont J they 207, 
Clock^ history of, 211-2260 
Cliff dwellings, 149= 
Coach, 177. 
Coke, 49. 

Cologne, cathedral, i62o 
Colonial architecture, 165^ 
Columns, 155, 157. 
Compass, mariner's, 199. 
Complete harvester, 95. 
Condenser, 69= 
Cooking, 15, 19c 
Corinthian column, 157. 
Cotton gin, 122-124, 
Cradle (for scythe), 86. 
Cradle scythe, 87. 
Cross-Bow, 141-143. 
Cugnot's steam-engine, 180. 
Cutter (for reaper), 90, 92. 

D 

Darby, Abraham, 49, 
Deck (of a boat), 196c 
De Vick, Henry, 221. 
Digging-stick, 74. 
Doric column, 1560 
Drag, 17I0 



Dudley, Dud, 49, 
Dutch plow, 79. 



Edison, Thomas, 37. 

Egypt (ancient), 76, 85, 15: 

i75> ^11^ 232, 235, 2460. 
Electric car, 185. 
Electric light, 360 
Electric stove, 27. 
Electric telegraph, 256-263, 
Electro-magnet, 256. 
Elevator architecture, 166. 
Embroidery, 129. 
England, 22, 49, 59, 89, 200, 20: 

251. 
Ericsson, John, 208. 
Escapement, 222. 



Faust, John, 245. 
Felly, 1760 

Field, Cyrus W., 2630 
Firebrands, 4, 
Fire-clock, 213. 
Fire drill, 6. 
Fireflies, 28. 
Fireplace, 14, 20. 
Fire signals, 252= 
Fitch, John, 205. 
Flying-machine, 1870 
Flying shuttle, 116. 
Forge, history of, 38-53. 
France, 23, 202. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 257. 
Friction-chemical match, 10 
Fulton, Robert, 207. 
Furnaces, 25, 46. 



268 



INDEX 



Gable, 155, 160. 

Galley, 195. 

Gang plow, 78, 83. 

Gas, 35. 

Gasoline engine, 189. 

Germany, 46, 245. 

Gothic architecture, 161. 

Gray's electric telegraph, 233. 

Greeks (ancient), 18, 32, 57, 86, 

139, 155, 176, 195, 216, 239, 

248. 
Gun, history of, 137-146. 
Gunpowder, 143. 
Gutenberg, John, 245. 

H 

Haimault scythe, 87. 

Hargreaves, 119. 

Harvester, complete, 95. 

Heating, 7. 

Hebrews (ancient), 86, 102, 246. 

Heddle, 112, 114, 

Henry, Joseph, 258. 

Hero's Engine, 55, 71. 

Hertz, Heinrich, 265. 

Hieroglyphics, 232. 

Hill, Sir Rowland, 257= 

Hooke, Robert, 254. 

Hopper (for mill), 100. 

Horse, 170. 

Horseless carriage, 185. 

Hot blast, 50. 

House, history of, 147-171. 

Howe, Elias, 133-136. 

Hub, 175. 

Hunt, Walter, 132. 

Hussey, Obed, 91. 



HuNgens, Clnistian, 225. 
Hypocaust, 18. 

I 

Ideograj^hs, 231. 
Incandescent light, 37. 
Industrial revolution, 119, iS: 
Ionic column, 157. 
Iron Age, 44-52. 
Irox, history of, 41-630 
Iron plow, 81. 



Jacquard's attachment, 122. 
Jacquard, Joseph, 120. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 81. 
Job's plow, 75. 
Jouffroy, Marquis, 202. 



Katta, 74. 
Kay, John, 116. 
Keel, 193. 
Knocking-stone, 97. 
Koster, Laurence, 224. 
Knots (for writing), 228c 



Lake dwellings, 150. 
Lamp, history of, 28-37. 
Langley, Professor, 189. 
Lathe (of loom), 115. 
Le.^ter, 246. 

Liv^ingstone ((juoted), 99. 
Llama, 169. 
Lock-stitch, 132. 
Locomotive, 180-185. 
Loom, histnr\ of, 109-122 



269 



INDEX 



M 

McCormick, Cyrus, 91.- 
Magnetic needle, 199. 
Manuscript volumes, 241c 
Marconi, William, 265, 
Mariner's compass, 199, 
Match, history of, 4-12. 
Memory, aids, 228 
Message, history of the, 246- 

265. 
Message sticks, 229. 
Meteoric iron, 41. 
Mill, history of, 97-1080 
Millstone, 100. 
Mortar, 97^ 
Moldboards, 78, 81. 
Morse, S. Fo B., 259. 
Moveable types, 244. 
Murdock, William, 35. 



N 



Needle, history of, 125-136. 
Newbold, Charles, 82. 
Newcomen, Thomas, 62. 
Neilson, 49. 

Xeivton, Sir Isaac, 180, 
" Niirenburg eggs," 223. 

O 

Oarlock, 192. 
Oersted, Professor, 257. 
Ogle, Henry, 90. 
Ore (iron), 4I0 



Paper-making, 242= 
Papin, Denis, 61, 202. 
Papyrus, 236. 
Parchment, 2380 
Parsons, Cc A., 71. 
Pendulum, 224^ 
Penny postage, 251. 
Percussion matches, 8. 
Pergamus, king of, 238c 
Pestle, 98e 
Phillipides, 248. 
Phoenicians, 195, 234. 
Phonograms, 233. 
Phosphorus matches, 11. 
Picture signs, 230^ 
Pig iron, 47. 
Piston, 62. 
Plato, 218. 
Pliny, i^^, 89= 
Pliny's plow, 77. 
Plow, history of, 73-84. 
Pointed arch, i6ic 
Polybius, 2 52c 
Post, 246. 
Postage, 252. 
Postage stamps, 250. 
Postal systems, 242-252. 
Potter, Humphrey, 64, 69 
Power-loom, 119. 
Printing, 242. 
Propellers, 208. 
Pueblo loom, 113. 



Quipu, 228c 



Pack (for burdens), 169. 
Paddle-wheel, 206, 207. 



Radiators, 25. 
Raft, 192. 



270 



INDEX 



Reaper, history of, 85-96. 
Richaud, 22. 
Reed (of loom), 115, 
Reed (for writing), 237= 
Reel (for reaper), yo. 
Renaissance, 1630 
Robert F. Stockton, 210, 
Roller-mill (for flour), 107. 
Romans (ancient), 18, 57, 86, 

139, 158, 176, 195, 219, 239, 

249. 
Rudder, 193, 194, 1970 
Rumsey, James, 204. 



Safety-match, 12. 

Safety-valve, 610 

Sail, 192. 

Saint, Thomas, 129. 

St, Paul's (cathedral), 1630 

St. Peter's (cathedral), 163. 

Screw-propeller, 208. 

Scythe, 860 

Scythe cradle, 88. 

Self-raking reaper, 93^ 

Self-binding reaper, 94. 

Seward, W. H„ (quoted), 83. 

Sewing machine, 129-136. 

Share (of plow), 75. 

'' Shay, wonderful one hoss,'* 

^77- 
Shed (of cloth), 1130 
Shuttle, 115, 116. 
Shuttle-race, 118, 
Sickle, 850 
Sledge, 171. 
Slings, 139. 
Smelting, 42 

27 



Smoke, 35. 

Somerset, Edward, 58. 

Spinning Jcnn\ , i 19, 

Spit (for cooking), 150 

Spokes, 175. 

Spring (of clock), 223. 

Spring (of vehicle), 179. 

Stamps (postage), 250. 

Steam, 54. 

Steamboat, development, 2ci- 

21O0 
Steam-carriage, 180. 
Steam -ExGiNE, history of, 54- 

72. 
Steam-plow, 84. 
Steam-turbine, 71. 
Steel, 51. 

Stephenson, George, 1830 
Stevens, John, 2080 
Stone Age, 38. 
Stone dwelling, 15I0 
Stove, history of, 13-270 
Strike-a-light, 8. 
Sturgeon, William, 257. 
Sun-dial, 212. 
Syllable-sounds, 232. 
Symington, William, 206c 
Syrian plow, 75. 



Tapers, 33. 
Telegraph, 252-263. 
Telephone, 263-265^ 
Thimble, 127. 
Thimonier, 131. 
Throwing-sticks, 138. 
Tiller, 197. 
Tinder, 7. 

I 



INDEX 



Torcli, 29, 31, 
'I'raditioM, 227. 
Travail, 171 

Trevethick, Richard, 182, 186, 
Trireme, 1960 
Turbine (steam), 71. 
Types, moveable, 244. 

U 

Ignited States, 80, 91, 106, 202, 
204. 



Vail, Alfred, 259^ 
Vedas, 227. 
Vienna bread, io6c 
Volume, 237. 

W 



Water-mill, 103c 

Watt, James, 67, 70, 182 

W^eaver-bird, no. 

Webster, Daniel, 81. 

Weft, ii2o 

Weight-clock, 220-223. 

Wheatstone, Professor, 2630 

Wheel, development of, 171- 

175- 
Wheel-barrow, 172. 
Whitney, Eli, 123. 
Wicks, 30, 34. 
Wigwams, 147. 
Wireless telegraph, 265. 
Wireless telephone, 265. 
Wood, Jethro, 82. 
Worcester, Marquis of, 58, 7S 

254. 
Wrought iron, 43. 



Walker, John, lOo 
Warming pan, 17, 22. 
Warp, 112. 
Watches, 223 
Water-clock, 215-219. 



Yarn beam, no. 



ZunI Indians, 149. 



272 



